The main feature of Lokashakti.org, publicly available to everyone, is our worldwide directory of organizations, places, and projects related to peace and social justice. Easily navigable by both name and location thanks to our Interactive Network Map, the directory returns results that are able to be narrowed down by distance, as well as according to any number of different categories by clicking 'Show Category Filters'. To search only by name, click here.
The other big service we provide is a Global Events Calendar for protests, demonstrations, lectures, meetings, etc. Our goal is to become the number one online destination for ways to get involved in local activism, as well as ways to act in solidarity with movements around the world. The power of the people is ours to create, so hopefully you'll join us by browsing our events, joining an action nearby, and ultimately helping us crowd-source our listings to make them more and more complete.
Once you create a user account with us, however, you'll be able to take advantage of a great deal more features, each one designed to facilitate networking and organizing, build interest in peace and social justice, and foster the growth of a sustained, global movement. Here's what we offer so far:
Customize your personal profile. By default when you sign up for an account on Lokashakti.org, you create a personal profile for yourself. Under Privacy Settings you can select whether to share your profile with the general public, Lokashakti users, or only those with whom you've chosen to become friends. You also have full control over what information to include, or not to include, on your profile.
Upload photos and add videos. All Lokashakti users have the ability to upload photos to our servers. You can also add videos from other sites like Vimeo or YouTube by simply entering the URL. You can rotate, rename, and arrange your photos into albums, or select a video to display as your profile video. The general privacy settings for photos are as above.
Add Organizations, Places, Projects, and Events to our system. While anyone who visits the site can view Network pages and events, only users are able to add them to our system. A great feature of the Lokashakti Network is that you're in no way limited to adding only those places you're affiliated with, or only those events you yourself are organizing. Especially in the beginning, we desperately need people adding anything and everything they can related to peace and social justice. Read about how to do it here. As a member of the site this is probably the number one way you can help out, since it's only once listings begin to seem complete that Lokashakti.org will have a chance to really catch on. Thanks for all you do!
Create a custom profile URL. This is an easy way to promote your profile on our site, as you can choose any name you like so long as it hasn't already been taken. Names may contain any combination of letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores. This feature is located under Change Profile URL. Your new profile URL will look like this: www.lokashakti.org/profile/will
Send private messages to other users. Lokashakti.org features a convenient way for you to send private messages to other users. You can choose a recipient among friends under Messages > Write New, or send a message to any user directly, either by clicking the 'Write Message' link on their profile page, or next to their name on any user list in which they appear.
Edit the applications on your profile. You can see all your friends' cities on a map, or display your latest photos at a glance. View all of your events, or allow people to leave you messages on your Wall. In the future this will be much more customizable, with the ability, for instance, to have your Twitter account appear in a sidebar, display an RSS feed below your Wall, or adjust the placement of all the different applications. Go to Preferences > Applications and start playing around. From this screen you can also adjust the individual privacy settings for various parts of your profile.
Chat with other Lokashakti users in real time. The Lokashakti chat bar is located at the bottom of your browser, and allows you to chat with other users who are online. Clicking on 'Chat Options' lets you set your profile status, and within each chat window you can send files back and forth, create handwritten messages and drawings, or view your chat history with whomever you're speaking. There's even a chatroom feature on the left for talking to multiple people at once. We eventually hope to integrate the group chat feature with organizations and projects on the site, and develop a simultaneous translate feature, enabling instant communication among people separated by distance and culture.
Translate any page on our site into any of 53 different languages by clicking on the red icon at the left on the chat bar down below. The languages currently available are: Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh, and Yiddish. In time we plan on integrating full language support for an increasing number of countries around the world.
Upload photos and link to videos. Any organization, project, or place with a profile on Lokashakti.org can create as many albums and upload as many photos to our servers as they wish. While at this point we're only able to accomodate videos from other sites, someday we anticipate having enough server capacity to be able to host videos ourselves. By default, for projects and organizations, photos and videos are visible only to members. These settings can be changed either during the Add a Network Page process, or else afterwards by clicking 'Edit Page' on the menu at the right of the Network page.
Approve all members before they join. This is a crucial feature of the Lokashakti Network, and one of the ways by which we set ourselves apart from sites like Facebook. Even though it may limit the amount of people who become members online, this feature is important in conserving the site's usefulness as an organizing tool. We suggest you only approve people who are affiliated with your organization or project in real life, as members immediately gain access to all photos, discussions, events, and other content, as set by the administrator(s). This feature is not merely for "fans" or people who happen to "like" what you do. For that we have a way for you to symbolically raise a fist in solidarity, which we intend to make more comprehensive as time goes on, allowing people to add a solidarity button wherever else they think it belongs online. In the future we're also planning on allowing people to subscribe to a page's news feed or list of public events.
Create discussions and add announcements. Discussions are topics on which any member can chime in, while announcements are simply created by an administrator, and posted to a page. By default discussions and announcements are visible only to members. These settings can be changed either during the Add a Network Page process, or else afterwards by clicking 'Edit Page' on the menu at the right of the Network page. Note: Since places have no members, the discussions feature is only available to projects and organizations.
Create a custom URL for your page. To make it as easy as possible for people to find your page on Lokashakti, every page administrator has the option of creating a custom URL. This is especially helpful for organizations who don't have a reliable web presence of their own. Simply select 'Custom URL' from the right menu, and enter whatever you want your page's URL to be, containing any combination of letters, numbers, hyphens, or underscores (note: letters are not case sensitive). Your new page URL will look like this: www.lokashakti.org/walden
Unpublish page. If you're making changes to a Network page and you want it made temporarily unavailable, simply select the 'Unpublish Page' option from the right menu. Whenever you're done making changes, click 'Republish Page' and like magic, it's back up on the site.
Create events sponsored by your organization, project, or place. There are two ways on Lokashakti to create sponsored events. You can go to Events > Add an Event from the main dropdown menu, or simply click anywhere you see that same link. The first field on that page - 'Event Affiliation' - features a dropdown menu from which you can select any Network page where you have the ability to add events. Note: If 'Personal Event' is the only option showing up, it means you haven't yet affiliated yourself with any Network page, or else you don't have proper access to be able to add events. In this case, talk to the organization's or project's administrator.
The second way to add an event sponsored by an organization, project, or place is directly from a Network page. On the right menu of the page, as long as you've signed in and have proper access, you'll find an option in blue marked 'Add an Event'. This takes you to a page where the event you add is automatically associated with that organization, project, or place.
Send email to members. Once again on the right menu of your organization's Network page, there's an option marked 'Text or Email Members'. This is where you're able to quickly and easily send private messages out to all members at once. This also works for projects as well. Note: As of yet, members are not able to respond to mass emails sent out like this. We are working on this, however, and promise to have the functionality available soon.
Send text messages to members. This feature is currently only available to users in the United States, but we'll be adding more countries shortly. From the same place that you send email to members of your project or organization, you can check a box near the top so that any members who have: a) elected to receive text messages, b) selected their mobile carrier, and c) entered their phone number (located under Privacy Settings), will recieve your private message - up to 140 characters - by text. This is one of the features we're most excited about, as it potentially has huge implications on organizing, especially during protests and other events when you need to get word out quickly to everyone in a group.
Create personal events, or events sponsored by an organization. On our site we have two main kinds of events - personal events, created either for everyone or just people you invite; and sponsored events, associated with any Network page. In either case, simply click on Add an Event under the Events menu heading, and select the appropriate option. From there you can customize the event's access level and visibility settings, making it open, moderated, private, or something that only members can view and attend. Note: As administrator of an organization or project you have the ability to restrict event creation to admins only, or open it up to all members (located under Page Options, from the 'Edit Page' selection on the right).
Custom tailor event access and privacy settings. By default, events are open to the general public, meaning that in addition to any Lokashakti user being able to RSVP, the event page is visible to everyone else online. Options exist however, during event creation, for event access and visibility to be restricted. By selecting 'Moderated' under the 'Event Access' field, people must request and be sent invitations before being able to RSVP. This gives administrators the ability to moderate event attendence, and be certain of which users can receive event emails and text messages.
An additional option also exists, for sponsored events, to restrict event visibility to members of the sponsoring project or organization. This is a key organizing feature of the site, and the option is located under the 'Event Visibilty' field (which itself only shows up once 'Sponsored Event' is selected up top). Note: Private events are only visible to those who have been invited, whether or not they're members of the sponsoring project or organization.
Import multiple events from iCal. An alternative method for adding events is importing an iCalendar file (ending in .ics) created with Google Calendar, iCal, Yahoo! Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook. This option is located towards the right along the top toolbar when viewing events on the site. After linking to or uploading the file, the system allows you to choose which events to actually import, and which event category to file them under. Don't forget to check off the box on the upper left for each event you want to add! Note: This feature currently only works for personal events, although we are working on extending functionality for sponsored events as well.
Send email to everyone who's attending. On the right-hand side of your event page you'll see a menu item, similar to the one seen on organization and project pages, marked 'Text or email participants'. From here you can create a private message that will get sent to all Lokashakti users who have signed up to attend your event. Note: As of yet, event participants are not able to respond to mass emails sent out like this. We are working on this, however, and promise to have the functionality available soon.
Send text messages to everyone who's attending. Same as above, event administrators have the ability to send text messages to those users who have signed up to attend the event, and who have enabled event text messaging on their Privacy Settings page. The potential usefulness of this feature cannot be overstated, as being able to effectively and privately communicate to people during a march or demonstration, for instance, can be of extreme value in terms of presenting an organized, united front for any nonviolent action.
Export your event to iCal. This feature, once we get it working, will allow you to export any event on the site to your personal calendar, so long as it accepts files in the iCalendar format (ending in .ics).
Duplicate event. For recurring events our site has a feature that allows you to duplicate all the details of an event, keeping you from having to enter the information again. Note: This only works for events sponsored by a Network page. In the future we hope to make the recurring event system more robust, allowing multiple events to be created at once.
Print event. This feature allows you in most cases to print out a one-page synopsis of any event, including a large Google map to the event location.
We have a lot more ideas for features that activists can use, and as soon as we get more funding, you can be sure we'll waste no time in developing them. To make a donation, click here! Some of the things we're planning include: Functionality to allow events to be sponsored by more than one page, Polls and voting for pages and events, Group chat for members, Functionality to subscribe to a page's events, Personalized calendars for users and calendar widgets for organizations, Photo albums and videos for events, A collapsible music player with customizable playlists of protest music, Formalized networking between pages, Batch invite friends from Gmail and Facebook, Automated private messages upon event creation, Issues being associated with events and resources, Real-time maps for events with simple mobile marker update capability, Mobile app check-in feature, Recurring events, Email alerts for events happening nearby, API intergration with sites like Meetup and Eventbrite, and a whole host of other things designed to facilitate real-world networking and organizing.
Is there a feature not mentioned here you'd like to see on Lokashakti.org? Email email@example.com and let us know!
With any social networking site, privacy is definitely a concern. Given the overtly political nature of Lokashakti, however, we take privacy issues even more seriously than we otherwise would. In planning and organizing a nonviolent movement against a repressive régime, it becomes of extreme importance that these same online tools we use to organize not be co-opted to track down activists.
When it comes to nonviolence, there is undeniable power in openness. This is why, for example, we ask that everyone use their real name on this site (Read about satya, our second guiding principle). There are some situations, however, in which from a strategic standpoint it becomes an imperative not to unnecessarily put information up for all to see. Here are some important suggestions to keep in mind while using our site, included here in the interest of keeping your information from being accessed by those with less-than-honorable intent:
Take advantage of our privacy settings. The settings to adjust who can view your profile can be accessed here. By default when you create an account it's set to be visible to other logged-in Lokashakti users. You can also make it entirely public, or visible only to friends. In addition, there are a few things that are always visible: your name, status, profile pic, and number of friends. Other items from your profile page for which you can individually adjust privacy settings include:
Photos. These are set to public by default. This is in case you want to share them with friends who aren't yet on the site. Visit your Privacy Settings page to change who can see your photos.
Friends. These are set, by default, to be visible only to other logged-in Lokashakti users. You can change this by visiting your Privacy Settings page.
Network Pages. This is the module that displays a list of all the Network pages you're currently affiliated with. The visibility settings for this are found on the Applications page. Everything on the Applications page, incidentially, is set to never be more visible than you've chosen your profile to be. You can, however, make these items less widely visible by editing their settings one by one.
Events. A module displaying all events that you've attended, or are planning to attend. Again, you can go in and change these settings on the Applications page.
Wall. Only friends are able to post on your wall. Visibility settings for this are again found on the Applications page.
Friends - Map View. This isn't quite as stalker as it sounds. Just a regular Google map, with one marker per friend, in whatever city they've set as their current location. You can change the settings for it here.
Don't accept friend requests from people you don't know. Even if you set certain things visible only to friends, don't forget that as soon as you approve a friend request, that person can now see your entire profile. So check your list of friends, and make sure you know who all of them are!
Block User feature. If it comes down to it, from any user's profile page, you can always make the choice to block them. The option is right up top, next to the little red Do Not Enter symbol. You can manage your block list from your Privacy Settings page. Note: This blocks a person from contacting only you. If you come across a profile that is very obviously spam, or otherwise inappropriate, it might be a better option to flag the profile instead, using the yellow exclamation point right next to the block symbol.
Be realistic, not paranoid. Here's a for-instance: Let's say you decide to buy a train ticket online with a credit card. It's most likely possible for your government to track exactly where you're heading and when, should they realistically desire to do so. In this case, avoiding all mention of the trip in wall posts or comments probably isn't going to keep the authorities off your track for very long. If you're planning an action, however, and you know it's the kind of thing that the police will want to monitor, then consider only discussing things by private message or IM, or over secure private discussions on organization profile pages. The lesson is to be realistic and practical about what it's really worth being secretive about. The element of surprise arguably has a place in strategic nonviolent struggle, as does a disarming level of openness. Only you know which is appropriate, to what extent, and when.
Only accept people as members if you know them. Since full access to certain features is granted only to members, it's important to be selective about whom you approve for membership. We suggest only adding members that are affiliated with your project or organization in real life, as this preserves the privacy and utility of online organizing tools such as discussions and wall posts. When you go to Add a Network Page, there's a section marked 'Privacy Settings' on the tab furthest right which allows you to adjust who can view wall posts, announcements, discussions, photos, and videos. By default, all of these are set to be visible only to members. If you choose to adjust these settings, making sure your members are aware is probably the easiest way to keep private information from becoming too widely available. This is why we've included appropriate language (Publicly visible / Visible only to members) for each module on your project / organization's page. Note: The privacy and visibility settings for events are adjusted individually. For more information, see the following section.
Full member lists for projects and organizations are available only to members, although each user does have the ability to either show or hide a list of Network pages that they're affiliated with. For more see the Privacy Issues section for users up above.
Consider creating private events. We hope that the majority of events added to the site are created in the spirit of inclusion, realizing that according to the theories governing people power, there's undeniably strength in openness, and in numbers. Nonetheless, it may sometimes make sense for access to certain types of planning meetings, social events, or even strategic actions to be kept private. Under 'Event Access' on the Add an Event page, any event can be set to 'Private' - restricting access only to those who have been invited. Setting 'Event Access' to 'Moderated' gives administrators control over who can RSVP, allowing only approved users to be able to receive email and text messages. Finally, if sponsored, these event pages have an additional level of privacy - available for both 'Open' and 'Moderated' events. Using the options under 'Event Visibility' the page can be set so that it's only able to be accessed by members of the sponsoring project or organization.
In not so many words, Lokashakti is a nonprofit organization and a social network for people interested in peace and social justice. With a small L our name means "power of the people" in Hindi, Marathi, or Sanskrit. With a capital letter L it could refer to our nonprofit, Lokashakti Inc., our online network to help build people's potential for collective nonviolent action, the Lokashakti Peace & Social Justice Network, or the band Lokashakti - a project started by our Executive Director in order to promote and fund our work. Related entities also include a music publishing company, Lokashakti Music Publishing, a record label, Lokashakti Records, and a growing series of websites promoting cultural resistance. Protest Music and Protest Art are the first two we have up.
2. Why should I join the Lokashakti Network?
With so many different online tools, it's hard sometimes to know which ones are really worth your while. The problem up until now is that it's been far more difficult than it should be to find out what's going on and where in terms of activism. Of course, there are plenty of helpful social media sites out there, but none have really been tailored towards activists. Among activist-oriented sites, there have been local and regional events calendars, but none have been successful at gaining more than a small share of visitors. This is where the Lokashakti Network sets itself apart. By combining a plethora of tools with an effort truly global in scope, we're confident we offer enough features that our user base will continue to grow, and the site will continue to prove itself more and more useful all the time.
Lokashakti gives you the flexibility to choose between three main types of Network resources to add:
Organizations. This is the most common, with both members and a physical location, resulting in a marker on the Network Map. Organizations must be associated with a country, region, and city, and enjoy access to the full range of features on Lokashakti.org. If your resource could possibly be included as an organization, please consider listing it as such, even if it's not a nonprofit, has employees instead of "members", or only has a mailing address. And don't worry, your selection is not set in stone; category listings can always be changed later on.
Places. These have no members, and accordingly are limited in their ability to interact with Lokashakti users. They do, however, have a physical location and a marker that shows up on the map. This would include things such as statues and other public art, different types of venues, or maybe certain restaurants, coffee houses, parks, or historical markers. Basically if it doesn't make sense that your resource would have members, then it should probably be classified a place.
Projects. This final class is the most informal we have, able to accomodate anything from a global online group trying to raise awareness for an issue, to a few activists in a small town in the midst of planning an action. If you'd like to create a page to promote a film or a book, for instance, this is definitely the best option. The defining feature of this classification is that entering a physical location is entirely optional, though like organizations projects can always have members with whom they're able to interact. In the future we plan on allowing for projects to be made entirely invisible to anyone not a member, further facilitating its use for planning, strategizing, and organizing online.
This dropdown list of countries and regions intends to allow flexibility in terms of selection, with special consideration for self-determination movements around the globe. It includes all political entities currently recognized as countries, and a number of additional political or geographic entities that could potentially one day achieve sovereignty. If you think there are any we've missed, please let us know. For information on freely appropriating our dropdown list for non-commercial use, please email us.
Definitely. In fact, we encourage it. If all our users added five organizations or places, before long we'd have an extraordinarily exhaustive global listing. This is not, however, meant to encourage false representation. While we want our users to add as many resources as they can, we don't want anyone trying to represent a place or an organization without the explicit authority to do so. This is why there's a checkbox at the bottom, when you go to Add a Network Page, that allows people to add any resource they want without having to be affiliated in real life.
If you see your organization listed, and would like to begin to manage its page yourself, the first step is to create an account, which only takes a minute. At that point you'll be able to click on the 'Claim This Page' link and initiate the process of becoming page administrator. Once this happens, you'll be able to edit and add information, begin listing events on behalf of your organization, and take advantage of all the other features we offer organizations, places, and projects listed on Lokashakti.org.
Yes. This website represents a grassroots effort to promote and expand existing information on organizations, places, projects, and events. As long as it remains faithful to what you're trying to represent, feel free to copy text and images from wherever you can, especially if you're able to cite the source. This is generally protected under the Fair Use clause of most coypright laws around the world. Public domain content, and anything licensed through Creative Commons, is always a safe bet. Click here for our full copyright policy.
If the page for anything you're directly affiliated with is inaccurate, you should claim it and edit it yourself, using the system we have set up. If the page has already been claimed, and you're not sure by whom, you can always flag it as a 'Misrepresented or unauthorized page', in which case we'll be sure and take appropriate action. Otherwise, please feel free to email us for any issues that may come up. Although none of the content here is posted in a commercial way, if you see something of yours you'd like us to remove, just let us know.
Please note that as a community-policed, crowd-sourced website, information you see posted may or may not be accurate, especially if posted on behalf of a page that hasn't yet been claimed. Lokashakti.org is not under direct moderation, and we trust our users to post appropriately and in good faith. If you see something that doesn't belong on the site, we have a system set up for flagging it. Although we do what we can, we won't always be able to make sure that the site stays free of unscrupulous information. Accordingly, Lokashakti Inc. cannot be held responsible for the details of any of our crowd-sourced user content, including pages, events, photos, and videos. Please see our Terms and Conditions of Use for further information, and of course, always surf responsibly.
There are two ways for people to join an organization or project on Lokashakti.org. The first is to be invited by someone who's already a member. In this case the person gets sent an email notification, containing a link for them to accept the invitation. Alternatively, people can visit the Network page for the organization or project and click on 'Become a Member'. In this case, the page owner receives an email telling them that someone has requested to become a member, at which point when any of that page's administrators visit the page, they'll see an option up top where the request can finally be approved.
Pages on Lokashakti.org - whether for organizations, places, projects, or events - always have at least one administrator, oftentimes the person who created the page. In order to share administrator duties with someone, that person must first be added as a member or listed as attending. Once they become a member or guest, as administrator you need to click on 'View All' in the Members or Confirmed guests box on the lower right-hand side of your page. Then on the following screen, next to the person's name, click on 'Make Administrator'.
Please note that since resources in the places category have no members, the system for adding multiple administrators is still a bit non-intuitive. Invitations for "membership" must be initiated by the current page administrator, at which point the same method applies as described above.
That's a great question, since Lokashakti is much, much more than just Facebook for social activists. First of all, Facebook is very useful for connecting people online who rarely get a chance to meet in real life. Lokashakti, on the other hand, is very much location based, emphasizing the way grassroots organizing takes place geographically by promoting events and organizations close to where you live. In this sense it encourages meeting up in real life instead of activism that only stays online, since lasting social change in our view is more likely to come once people have been mobilized in the very physical sense of the term.
In addition, while Facebook pages are usually only accessed following a link from somewhere else, Lokashakti gives you the power to search for events and organizations, tailoring the results to exactly what you want to see. What many people might not realize is that Facebook was never designed to browse pages and events. People perhaps, but not pages and events. Which means that if you or your friends don't already know about something, chances are you're not just going to stumble upon its page. By using Lokashakti, however, you can find things on your own using any number of different filters, and be sure that whatever organization or event you're trying to promote will be visible to as many people as possible.
Next, as Lokashakti is a nonprofit organization, we promise to never allow commercial interests to dictate what we do, never sell anyone's information for any reason, and never bombard our users with advertisements. Lokashakti is made for activists, by activists, and as such remains committed to activist ideals, creating whatever new media resources can help advance peace and social justice through collective nonviolent action.
Another fundamental difference is a side effect of having an online network filled with self-selected social activists. Oftentimes the most popular things on Facebook are also the most banal, with wall posts about the simplest, most meaningless things somehow garnering the attention of large swaths of people. On Lokashakti you can feel more comfortable discussing the issues you really care about because after all, that's why everyone's here.
Finally, Lokashakti emphasizes the power of small groups, something Facebook has historically never done all that well. Instead of trying to get as many people to "like" your page as possible, groups on Lokashakti are encouraged to remain as small as they need to be in order to guard their own privacy, maintain their efficiency, and preserve the usefulness of our online organizing tools. Along with things like group text messaging, which has huge implications in the context of protests and other actions, the resources and additional mobile / online tools we have planned will serve to differentiate Lokashakti even more as time goes on.
There are a couple of places on Lokashakti.org where in the course of adding information there exist options to include simple HTML tags and a limited amount of formatting. The sections where this is possible include the 'Description' field on Add an Event, and again during the 'Post an Announcement' and 'Start a Discussion' process for most Network pages. Although not an exhaustive list, in these places the following HTML tags are acceptable:
|strong or b||em or i||h1 to h6||img src, img title, img alt, and img align="left" or "right"|
|br / and hr /||ul and li||ol and li||a href, a title, and target="_blank" (for all external links)
|q and blockquote||u and sup||del and ins||a name and a href="# ... " (for all internal links)|
|cite and var||code
||abbr title||a href="mailto: ... " (for email addresses)|
|p, div, and span
||combined with||style=||"font-family: ... font-size: ... text-align: ... color:# ... background-color:# ... "|
Another place where you might find these style notes helpful is in the 'Description' field on Add a Network Page. While we wanted to keep that particular field free of custom HTML to maintain consitency throughout the site, there are nonetheless certain elements that can often create the desired effect. For instance, you can add space between sections simply by pressing "enter" - all line breaks are displayed. Or, to mimic other common formatting features, you may be interested in employing capital letters, underscores, vertical lines, and other special characters, such as the em-dash ( — ). These characters are called HTML entities, and can either be copied and pasted, or typed out using the character entity name beginning with an ampersand ( & ) and ending with a semi-colon ( ; )
For instance, the HTML character entity reference
bull shows up as a bullet-point: • while
rarr displays a right arrow: →
Note: Without proper rendering support, some older browsers may not display all special characters. Click here for a full list of character entity references.
Lokashakti is an organization dedicated to the promotion of peace and social justice through peaceful means. This is why we make so many resources available free of charge to activists around the world. We do have a few rules, however, aimed at ensuring that our site remains a vehicle for positive nonviolent social change, while protecting the privacy and free speech of all our users:1. Please do not post anything that could be considered hateful or abusive.
This includes any comments, postings, photos, videos, links, or other content that promote racism, sexism, homophobia, or religious intolerance. It also includes just generally being mean. Even when you disagree with someone - or perhaps especially when you disagree with someone - a little respect tends to go a long way. See our guiding principle daya.2. Please do not willfully misrepresent any person or organization.
We take very seriously the issue of false representation on this site. Organizations and people have the right to mould their own public presence online, which we aim to defend as fiercely as we possibly can. In addition, we hope for the Lokashakti Network to become a trusted, reliable source for information on what's going on and where. In the end this is as much about fostering the integrity of our site as it is about protecting each other from misrepresentation and false information. See our guiding principle satya.3. Please do not use this site to advocate or promote violence.
When it comes to fighting for peace and social justice, we firmly believe that means and ends are inseparable. This precludes many traditional methods of struggle, as we've seen time and again what can happen once people become convinced that the ends justify any means deemed necessary. So while you definitely don't need to be a pacifist to use the site, you do have to support the idea of conflict being waged in a nonviolent way. It's this idea of nonviolence, along with the refining of its tactics, the increase of its effectiveness, and the understanding of its power that Lokashakti was founded to promote. See our guiding principle ahimsa.
While we hope it doesn't happen, violation of any of the preceding will result in action being taken, up to and including revocation of user status. But much more than merely what not to do, we wish to emphasize the positive ideals we encourage all our users to work towards: nonviolence, truth, compassion, fearlessness, and service. Please see our Guiding Principles page for an explanation of how these ideals serve to promote the power of the people.
Also, since there's no way for us to monitor everything happening on the site, we have a system set up for flagging any event, photo, video, Network page or user profile that seems to run contrary to these terms and conditions. Just click the exclamation point on the top right of most every page, and follow the prompts. We very much appreciate your help in reporting anything inappropriate you see, and hope that together our work pays off as we build a community united in the global struggle for peace and social justice.
After all: "¡El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!" (Chilean working class anthem)