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 automatically archive newsletters to the website?

1. We want want to be able to review and edit messages before they appear on the website to make sure they meet our policies. For example, BPN newsletters accept recommendations from business owners in response to a question, but we only archive recommendations from people who have first-hand experience using the service or product, not promotional postings. This does mean that there is a delay in posting reviews on the website, but the reviews that we do post have a higher value for parents than those on websites where all submissions are accepted and posted.

2. The BPN newsletters go out to a members-only list, so subscribers post with the expectation that their messages will not be available publicly. 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. We edit out this information before posting it to the web site.

3. In the past we have considered making the BPN website password accessible by subscribers only, which would allow us to automatically archive entire newsletters, but we want our reviews and advice to be available to everyone.

4. Many questions are asked every week that do not receive responses. Automatically archiving every message 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.

Why don't you use wiki/blog software 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
   Many of our subscribers are novice computer users, and email tools are more familiar and easier to use than blogs and wikis. It's easier to filter newsletters and delete the ones of little interest, or save favorite ones for later.

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 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, discourage people from participating, and reduce the feeling of support and community that we aim for.