A Voice for Greater Los Angeles	Links
	sharing LA  See how the angels are going their own ways, as if they didn't see each other.

Sharing LA envisions a bright future for Los Angeles. Founded on the principles of tolerance and nonviolence, sharing LA aims to be an idea bank on the web, to develop, organize and focus the community's creative powers.  Sharing LA is a project of Collective Communication, Inc., a California non-profit.

 
Mission Statement

Sharing LA is a web-based community voice for Greater Los Angeles. Open to everyone, democratic and non-profit, it is a socially responsible civic forum guided by the principles of tolerance and nonviolence. Using web tools designed to promote social unity, sharing LA is a clearing house for ideas and information from all sectors of the city - government, community, public and private concerns. It provides a unifying synergy for the urban area.
 
 
A Forum for Your Organization

By  contributing notices to sharing LA, your organization can advise the Greater Los Angeles area about important and timely events in your community. This service is provided at no cost.

We invite all kinds of organizations to participate in this project, including government, civic, educational, business, grass roots, and arts & entertainment entities. We welcome both non-profit and for profit enterprises, provided your information is of benefit to the community and is guided by the principles of tolerance and nonviolence. See our Guidelines for Participation.

Sharing LA uses InterMix open source community software for the web. InterMix is designed to build community focus while at the same time encouraging diversity of expression.

Organizations  that elect to use InterMix's Virtual Private Network (VPN) feature can post  information to their listing that will be accessible only to the people who have the correct password. VPN can thus be an efficient means to pass along internal company policy, contacts, phone numbers, and action items to an organization's employees and supporters, but not the public. VPN is seamlessly connected to the public network, but veiled from public view.
 
 
Linking People and Information

Sharing LA is a compendium of data from many sources, helping you to navigate and access the resources of Greater Los Angeles.

It features a database of community resources, a bulletin board of useful and timely information, a community-wide calendar of events, and a democratic forum for discussing issues of concern to Los Angeles. Of prime importance, the site will observe the principles of  tolerance and nonviolence.
 
 
Principles

Our principles are to be open, democratic, radically inclusive, tolerant and nonviolent. Democracy and openness are required if we are to create a believable voice for the city. Inclusiveness, tolerance and nonviolence are precautions against unleashing destructive energy.  All these principles are congruent with our desire to bring people together in a way that respects their differences.   See the write up on "collective communication".

Open.  All our processes are open -- our books and meetings.  We have signed on to the concept of the "Open Society" -- tolerance, human freedom, the preservation of human potential in a society that does not adopt any one particular point of view as its own.

Democratic.  In what may be our most controversial position, we have decided to weight our message rating system so that each zip code has an influence on the communication process according to its population.  The wealthier parts of Los Angeles are more represented on the internet, so weights are needed to redress the balance.

Radically inclusive and tolerant.   The phrase "radically inclusive" emphasizes our desire to include every kind of person.  Unity must be all inclusive or it will fall apart debating where the lines should be drawn.  Also, the wider the spread of views coming into the electronic process, the better the chance of an intelligent result.  The down side of our policy is not as bad as it might seem.  Uncivil and intolerant persons who come in under our "radically inclusive" policy will not be highly visible, because they won't get much support for their messages.

Nonviolent.  Nonviolence is what we are all about.  The Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, 2001 - 2010, as declared by the United Nations, gives us a platform.  The time has come for humanity to make a break with its violent past. To do so requires us to come to grips with the issues of peace between peoples and justice within the community at every level.