Pika: Empowering Non-Programmers to Author Executable Governance Policies in Online Communities

Internet users have formed a wide array of online communities with diverse community goals and nuanced norms. However, most online platforms only offer a limited set of governance models in their software infrastructure and leave little room for customization. Consequently, technical proficiency becomes a prerequisite for online communities to build governance policies in code, excluding non-programmers from participation in designing community governance. In this paper, we present Pika, a system that empowers non-programmers to author a wide range of executable governance policies. At its core, Pika incorporates a declarative language that decomposes governance policies into modular components, thereby facilitating expressive policy authoring through a user-friendly, form-based web interface. Our user studies with 10 non-programmers and 7 programmers show that Pika can empower non-programmers to author policies approximately 2.5 times faster than programmers who author in code. We also provide insights about Pika’s expressivity in supporting diverse policies online communities want.