Negative review policy

• We accept negative reviews of businesses and business owners that meet our posting policies.
• All reviews that are accepted for the newsletters, both positive and negative, may also be eventually archived to our website.
• We do not accept negative reviews of people that we don't consider to be businesses or business owners.
• We do not accept negative reviews that are not based on your own or your child's first-hand experience.

• Philosophy behind the negative review policy
• Posting a negative review
• How BPN defines business and business owner
• Archiving negative reviews to the website
• If your business has a negative review
• Guidelines for Specific Newsletters   (Childcare   House & Garden   Recommendations   Schools & Preschools  )

Philosophy behind the negative review policy

We also want to be fair to people and businesses in our community. We don't want BPN to be a vehicle for spreading rumors and gossip, or as a way for disgruntled former employees to settle a score. The BPN policy is intended to prevent this, and volunteers make every effort to make sure that negative reviews meet this policy. We also don't want to single out employees who may have little say in how their larger organization is run (like teachers), or individuals whose livelihoods depend on the personal preferences and personalities of their clients (like housekeepers.) Our policy on negative reviews is meant to balance usefulness with fairness.

The current policy was last revised in May 2005.

Posting a negative review

1. BPN does not accept unsolicited reviews, whether positive or negative, with a few very specific exceptions. Therefore, negative reviews must be posted in response to a question that appeared in a recent BPN newsletter.

2. Negative reviews must be based on the first-hand experience of the BPN subscriber who is posting the review, or their child's. This means that for schools, classes, camps, etc., your child must have actually attended, not just observed or visited. We do not accept negative reviews based on the experiences of neighbors, friends, and relatives. We do not accept negative reviews from people who have worked at the business being reviewed.

3. We require and assume that BPN subscribers who post negative reviews are posting a true and accurate account of their own first-hand experience. This is the case 99% of the time, but we do follow up with the subscriber who posted the review if there are any questions later about authenticity or accuracy.

4. Wording for negative reviews: Negative reviews must describe the events that took place that caused the bad experience, without editorial comments and opinions. "Just the facts, ma'am." No opinions are allowed in a negative review, such as "worst dentist I've ever been to!" No derogatory adjectives are allowed, such as "was rude" or "work was shoddy". Instead just describe the events that caused you to have a bad experience and leave it to the reader to form her own opinion.

5. In posting to BPN newsletters, BPN subscribers agree to follow this policy and affirm that their review does meet the requirements above.

How BPN defines business and business owner

- they have a business name, or
- they have a business license, or
- they rent/own office space, or
- they have a business phone, email address or website, or
- they hire employees, or
- they hand out business cards, or
- they market themselves as a business outside BPN, such as ads in Parents Press, Yellow Pages, etc.

- they work within a BPN-defined "business", AND
- they either own the business or don't report to anyone higher in the business

schools, contractors, medical practices, doctors, therapists, adoption facilitators, daycare centers, electricians, plumbers, law firms, attorneys, cleaning services, summer camps, music classes, tutoring centers, support groups, accountants

teachers, babysitters, nannies, housekeepers, sales clerks, staff at medical practices, receptionists

home daycares, school directors, doulas, handymen, carpenters, gardeners, dog walkers & sitters, tutors, real estate agents

If a subscriber is submitting a negative review of a person, and it's unclear whether the person is a business as we define it, it is up to the subscriber to convince the moderator that the person meets BPN's definition of a business before we will accept the negative review for the newsletter.

Archiving negative reviews to the website

Note: The current negative review policy was developed in May 2005. The BPN website has been online since 1995. As of May 2005, there are more than 2,500 pages of reviews, some of which may contain negative reviews that were posted under previous policies. We are updating older reviews as time permits, but please be aware that some older reviews may conflict with the current policy. We also occasionally overlook a review that does not meet BPN policy, despite our best efforts. Please send us an email to tell us about a review on our website that doesn't appear to meet the current policy.

If your business has a negative review

All reviews appeared originally in one of the weekly email newsletters that are mailed to subscribers. (See How does it work? for more info about this.) Reviews from the newsletters are later archived to the website, as time permits.

Please Note! If there is a negative review of your business on BPN that contains factual errors or misinformation, or doesn't meet our policy in some other way, please Click Here to notify us and we will investigate. We usually reply within a day or two.

Negative review on the website

1. You can write a response and we'll add it to the website directly following the negative review. Responding to a negative review can be a good opportunity not only to set the record straight, but also to let local parents know more about your business. Click here to send us an email.

2. You can decline to be reviewed in the BPN. We'll remove all postings about your business that are currently on the website, good and bad, and add a note that you've asked not to be reviewed on the BPN. We will not accept further reviews of your business. Please send us an email to request this.

3. Professional standards exception. If you are prohibited from responding to a negative review because of privacy laws such as HIPAA or some other professional regulation, please send us an email.

4. New owner exception. If you are the new owner of a business (or the new director/principal at a school) and the negative reviews apply to the previous owner, we can remove the old postings and start afresh. In this case, please send us an email.

5. Older review. The current negative review policy was developed in May 2005. There may be reviews on the website that predate the current policy. You can send us an email and ask us to update your review so that it conforms to the current policy.

Negative review in one of the newsletters

In this case, the review appeared in a BPN newsletter which was emailed to subscribers, but it has not yet been archived to the website. Please be aware that it is not technically possible to recall an email that has already been sent, so we can't "remove" a posting that has appeared in one of the newsletters. You are welcome to submit a response, and we'll post it in an upcoming newsletter. If you are not a subscriber, click here to send us an email with your response. Responding to a negative review can be a good opportunity not only to set the record straight, but also to let local parents know more about your business (more info).

One word of caution: we sometimes receive email from business owners several weeks or months after a negative review has appeared in a newsletter. BPN subscribers see hundreds of reviews every week, so there is a good chance that most subscribers won't remember the posting you are responding to. Or, they may not have ever read the original post (most subscribers do not read every newsletter we mail out.) It's good to keep this in mind when you are writing your response -- it might not be desirable to re-visit a complaint that has already been forgotten, or that wasn't ever read in the first place. It probably isn't in the best interests of your business. A better solution may be to encourage satisfied customers to post positive reviews.

Negative Review Guidelines for Specific Newsletters

• Daycares: negative reviews are accepted if the daycare meets BPN's definition of a "business" and your child attended
• Babysitters and nannies: negative reviews are not accepted
• Daycare staff: negative reviews are not accepted
• Please let the moderator know if you've had a bad experience with a person who has promoted her/himself in the newsletter, even if negative reviews are not accepted

• Schools, Preschools, Camps: negative reviews are accepted, but your child must have attended (not just visited). We do not accept negative reviews of a school or camp from former or current staff. We do not accept critical accounts of schools and camps based on someone else's experience. This includes questions about a school that contain the phrase "I have heard ..." followed by negative information.
• Teachers, Principals, Directors: negative reviews are not accepted of individual staff members, even if the person is not identified by name. It is OK to comment on communication between school and parents, or about organizational style, as long as you give specific examples. However, you can't single out any people in your review or make negative comments about their personalities.
• Classes, Tutors, After-School Programs: negative reviews are accepted if the class meets BPN's definition of "business" and the other requirements of negative reviews are met.

• We do not accept negative reviews from people who were not actually a client of the business being reviewed.
• Contractors, electricians, plumbers, etc: negative reviews are accepted
• Housekeepers: negative reviews are not accepted
• Informal arrangements such as gardeners, pet sitters, handymen: negative reviews are not accepted unless the person meets BPN's definition of "business"
• Realtors: negative reviews are not accepted unless the person meets BPN's definition of "business"
• Please let the moderator know if you've had a bad experience with a person who has promoted her/himself in the newsletter, even if negative reviews are not accepted

• We do not accept negative reviews from people who were not actually a client of the business being reviewed.
• Doctors, attorneys, accountants, financial advisors: negative reviews are accepted
• Doulas: negative reviews are not accepted unless they meet BPN's definition of "business"
• Employees: negative reviews are not accepted unless they meet BPN's definition of "business owner"
• Classes, lessons, tutors: negative reviews are accepted if it meets BPN's definition of "business"