• Only members of the list may post to the list. Newsletters should not be forwarded to non-members without permission. (Also see the policy on privacy.)

• Members agree to respect each other's privacy. This means that members may not misuse the personal information of other members or send them unwanted or unsolicited email. See the Privacy Policy for details.

• Messages should be generally interesting, informative, or useful for parents on the network. Newsletters may not be used as a vehicle for broadcasting a message to as many people as possible.

• No advertising: The list may not be used for commercial purposes or for any advertising other than items and services that members themselves are offering. Recommendations are always welcome, though. (Also see the policy on advertising.)

• Politeness is strictly enforced. The point of the list is for all of us to help each other. There is a great deal of diversity on the lists and you will sometimes see views expressed that you do not agree with. While you are encouraged to post your own views, critiquing the views of others is not allowed in the newsletters. (See Express your opinion). Also see Getting personal and Disparaging others' opinions. The politeness policy also extends to the volunteers who run the newsletters. Please be nice to them - they are giving up their spare time to get the newsletters out to everyone.

The moderators must judge for themselves whether messages meet the policies, which have been developed over 10 years and are still evolving. We can't guarantee 100% that we always apply all the policies equally and fairly, but that is what we try very hard to do.

Do you ever unsubscribe people for breaking the rules?

Chicken Pox Parties

Disparaging others' opinions and practices

You may not imply that someone else is not a good parent (or spouse or citizen, etc.) unless they agree with your own opinions and/or parenting style. An example that frequently comes up on the BPN is proponents of Attachment Parenting suggesting that parents who don't use this method are raising insecure or unhappy children.

See also the sections about Preaching and Politeness.

Getting personal

We ask this because not many of our subscribers live outside of this area. In fact, most of our subscribers live in the Easy Bay cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Albany and surrounding areas. Therefore, out-of-area requests are not likely to get responses. They place a disproportionate burden on the volunteer moderators and are not likely to be of general interest to our subscriber pool.

We are happy to take more general requests such as "Moving to...." or "Vacationing In...", as long as they are parenting/family related. These frequently get excellent and useful responses for popular destinations (Boston, DC or Hawaii) and fewer or no responses for less popular destinations (Boise, Glendale). We don't accept travel questions that are more fully answered elsewhere, such as "need a hotel near the Rome airport". See Travel Questions for details.

Gossip

1) At election time we usually send out a one-time "Special Election Edition" which allows subscribers to express their thoughts about candidates and propositions that have some bearing on the family and parenting. Rules for these special issues are online at parents.berkeley.edu/election_rules.html. When we are not able to put together a special issue, members may post a message to the Announcements newsletter at election time as long as it follows the rules for the special election issues.

2) Between elections, we post newsworthy events that we think subscribers would be interested in. They need to be related to parenting or children. The right place to post these is in the Announcements newsletter, in the "Other Announcements" section. The announcement must be a personal note from a subscriber who includes his/her name and email address in case there are questions. We can't accept mass-mailings that have been forwarded to many people. Any names, addresses, emails, dates, phone numbers, or web sites that are contained in the message must be verified by the subscriber. The best method is to write a short personal note and include a website that people can go to for additional information.

We do not accept messages about political fundraisers.

1. We do not use any of the information you give us when you subscribe for anything except the "Welcome New Members" section of the newsletter, which goes only to other subscribing parents. If you do not want your name to appear in the Welcome section, you have the option to request that on the subscription form.

2. We save only your email address in order to mail newsletters to you. We do not store your name or your neighborhood or the ages of your children, or any other information you give us other than your email address.

3. We do not give away or sell or reveal names or email addresses for any other reason, ever.

4. Most of the newsletters allow you to specify how you want your posting to be signed. You can sign with just your first name, or your full name and email address, or any other moniker including "Anonymous". Exceptions to this are the postings where a contact email/phone is needed, such as the Marketplace and Childcare newsletters. See Can I post anonymously? for more information about this.

5. When we archive advice and reviews to the website, we remove all identifying information first unless you have given us permission to post it (such as tutor announcements.) Full names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc., are never included, even if you included it in your original post to the newsletter. Please let us know immediately if you find that your name was accidentally included on a web page, and we'll remove it at once.

6. Be aware that when you post a message to one of the newsletters, it will be seen by thousands of people. There are 24,959 subscribers receiving the BPN newsletters, so it's very possible that your neighbor, your co-worker, your boss, or your child's teacher is on the list. Please keep this in mind. And, as always with any kind of written correspondence, please be prudent about what you put into your email if you are signing your name to it.

7. Subscribers may not forward newsletters to non-subscribers without permission. The newsletters often contain personal information about subscribers such as their full names, childrens' names, phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. As with any other email you receive, you should never forward the words of, or personal information about, another person without their permission. It is OK to forward some good advice to a friend but please remove all the personal information first, or ask the permission of the people who posted.

8. It is not allowed for anyone to contact another subscriber for ANY reason other than responding directly to the question they asked in their post. You may NOT offer any other service, advice, or recommendation that they did not ask for specifically, or solicit people in any way, whether for commercial purposes or not. We want subscribers to feel that they can include their names or email addresses in their post without being bombarded with unwanted email from other subscribers. It is OK to send somebody an email that answers the question they asked, or to say thanks, or to say hello to a friend. Most people are happy to receive email like this. But it is not OK to send another subscriber email that would be considered unwelcome by most people. This includes criticism about a posting of theirs you saw in the newsletter, solicitations (even if it's for a good cause), and anything that could be interpreted as advertising. Example 1: if you see a posting in the newsletter that you disagree with or disapprove of, you may not phone or send email to the person who posted to comment or complain to them about the posting unless they specifically invited people to write them with comments. See Can't I express my opinion when I think a letter is offensive or another parent is wrong?. Example 2: a subscriber who runs a nanny agency may not take email addresses from the newsletter in order to send people information about their business. In both of these examples, the email is assumed to be unwanted and the privacy of a subscriber is being violated.

The main reason is that if we use the newsletter to "get the word out" to as many people as possible about a favorite cause, the newsletter will quickly become too large to be useful, and too onerous to plow through.

The second reason is that many chain letters are hoaxes. A good website to check for hoaxes is http://www.snopes.com/.

Donation Requests

Fundraising Events & Sales

• schools, public or non-profit
• religious institutions
• community organizations
• non-profit groups for parents or kids

We cannot accept announcements about fundraising events for:

• individuals
• political events
• organizations that are not parenting- or family-related
• events that children would not normally attend
• fundraisers for medical conditions

If your event meets the criteria above, you can post to ...

• Marketplace for garage sales & rummage sales
• Parents of Teens for high school events
• Announcements for walkathons, car washes, auctions, and similar events.

Note about Items for Sale
It is OK to post items to the Marketplace that are being sold to raise money for your child's non-profit school, sports team, chorus, and similar groups, or for non-profit family-related community organizations such as city parks, parenting groups, and the like. However, to avoid having a Marketplace newsletter full of ongoing ads for non-profits, please stick to the items sold during fundraising drives as opposed to merchandise that is always available for sale. Also be aware that most everyone with a child in school will be selling something at one time or another, so please don't rely on the Marketplace to get rid of all those boxes of gift wrap and candy!

Q&A vs. Open-Ended Discussion

• a question seeking advice from other parents, or
• a reply to a recent question

Therefore, we CANNOT ACCEPT:

• Questions that are not really questions
  This includes general observations and complaints, and other posts that are invitations to open-ended discussions. Questions need to be in the form of a parent seeking advice from other parents. Open-ended discussions about schools, politics, and community are beyond the scope of BPN - please instead use other outlets such as blogs, letters to the editor, etc.

• Responses that imply that the original question was inappropriate
  All responses must answer the original question. We cannot accept responses that question the validity of the question, or suggest that the question should not have been asked. For example, if someone asks for recommendations for where to buy a first birthday cake, you may not respond saying (or implying) that one-year-olds should not eat birthday cake.

• Responses that contain negative remarks about others' responses
  You may post your own advice in response to a question, but you may not disparage the advice others have given.

• Follow-up postings from someone who has already posted a response
  Please restrict yourself to one response per topic. BPN does not accept rebuttals and counter-rebuttals from people who have already posted a response.

Please write to the moderator if you think that someone has posted incorrect or misleading information, or if you have a question about any postings that have appeared. The moderator's email address is shown at the top of the newsletter.

Unsolicited Reviews

An unsolicited review is a review for something that was not specifically requested in a recent BPN newsletter. Recent newsletters are the ones listed in the "Reply to a previous question " menu on the Recommendations and House & Garden posting forms. Usually the last 2-3 weeks's worth of questions are listed. Once a topic ages out of the topic list, we can no longer accept responses for that topic. We also cannot accept responses to or comments about topics that have been archived to the BPN website. Please write to the moderator if you think that someone has posted incorrect or misleading information.

Previously we did accept unsolicited reviews, but we discontinued the practice in 2007 because of multiple problems over the years. Problems included 1) people recommending themselves (or having friends recommend them) to boost their business, 2) people getting back at former employers by posting damaging reviews, and 3) people posting bad reviews of their competitors. Although these problems can come up in solicited responses too, we have found that they are much more likely in an unsolicited review.

We know that most unsolicited reviews are valid and are posted with good intentions -- they can be a good way to put in a plug for a valued community resource. However, we've found that this benefit is outweighed by the likelihood of self-promotion or malicious intent.

Sorry, but we can't make exceptions to this rule because of the many unsolicited reviews that we reject every week. Sooner or later someone will post a question about your topic and you can post a response then. Or, you can post to Yelp or Craigslist.

Exceptions
There are three types of unsolicited reviews that are accepted because of their high value for BPN subscribers. These must be reviews submitted by BPN subscribers who have first-hand experience with the school, person, or service being recommended:

• Schools, preschools, and camps (post to Schools or Parents of Teens)
• Childcare providers and daycare centers (post to Childcare)
• Individuals who work in the home, such as housekeepers and pet sitters (post to House & Garden)

Whining, Venting, and Preaching