Also check at your local childcare referral organization such as Bananas in Alameda County and Parents' Place in San Francisco.

See also: How to start a resource like BPN

Why don't you archive like YahooGroups or Craigslist?

1. People often include personal information in their messages, such as their full names, phone numbers, email addresses, names and ages of their children, and details about very private matters. So we'd need to either review everything before posting it to the web, or require a password before anyone could access the website. We're reluctant to set up a members-only website because we want our reviews and advice to be available to everyone.
2. Many questions are asked every week that do not receive responses. Automatically archiving everything would result in a clutter of topics on the website, many of which have little value because they never received responses. We don't want the lively discussions and great advice to be lost in the clutter. We want more control over how and where topics are archived.

Some other reasons...

• Because we are a private list, only members can post, and therefore many of the postings are meant for other parents on the list, not The World. Therefore, not all of our information can be made public on a website, and we'd need someone to review every post to decide which ones can be public, and which ones can't. Craigslist and other similar websites don't need to review each post because they are entirely public.
• Time-sensitive postings, such as Childcare and Marketplace, would require regular and frequent updates if we put them on the website. Since we don't have staff, we can't do this. We can't automatically archive these the way YahooGroups and Craigslist do, because they nearly always include personal information so other members can contact the poster. These postings would either need to be edited before putting them on the website, or password-protected. Some day, we may create a members-only, password-protected are on our website, but for now we use email to get these postings to members.
• The Advice and Recommendations newsletters are not time-sensitive. They are useful to the public, and people often post anonymously, so it makes sense that these can go on to the website. However, these need to be reviewed first because people often include personal information in the body of their messages. In addition, there is the desire to not archive topics that never received any responses.

Why don't you do everything on the web instead of sending out email newsletters?

1. Email is more personal
   Receiving email has a much more personal feel than logging in to a website. This gives a feeling of community to the network that web-based discussion boards don't have. We think this makes it more likely that people will participate in discussions.
2. Email is faster
   Most of our members are very busy with activities that don't center around a computer. They may only sit down at the computer every few days. Reading email is a much more passive activity than logging in to a website, so a member who isn't on the computer often is much more likely to participate in a discussion that comes into her email box than one that's on a website.
3. Email is easier to use
   Most of our members are novice computer users, and email tools are more familiar and easier to use than web tools. It's easy to sift through the newsletters quickly and delete the ones of little interest, or save favorite ones for later. The more advanced users can take advantage of email tools such as sorting and filters to make it even more convenient.
4. Email digests are easier to customize & organize
   The BPN receives several hundred postings a day. Since we have moderators putting our newsletters together, topics and sub-topics can be grouped together in a friendlier way than a more automated subject-based or date-based system. Topics can be collected and sent out periodically as digests rather than posting hundreds of individual messages as they come in. And, we can shift groupings around as needs change, for example, adding seasonal sections for summer activities and school information nights.
5. We want to be able to moderate postings
   A big part of the appeal of BPN is that it is moderated. Since every message is reviewed by one of the volunteers, we can have policies for the newsletters that we would not be able to support on a web-based message board, where every post is immediately added to the website. For example, we don't allow people to post chain letters and urban legends, and we try to maintain a level of politeness in discussions so that controversial topics don't generate into a flamefest of angry confrontations. These are the kinds of postings that can make a web-based discussion board onerous and unpleasant to read. They also discourage many people from participating, and reduce the feeling of support and community that we aim for.