BPN accepts only reviews and recommendations that clearly show your own or your child's first-hand experience with the person, school or business being recommended and that do not benefit you in any way. The goal is to publish advice and reviews that were written in the spirit of helping other parents. This policy has resulted in reviews that are more trustworthy than other consumer review sites. Failure to disclose your relationship to a school or business you recommend can result in your subscription being revoked and in some cases, your school or business being removed from the BPN website, per our policy about Deceptive Reviews.
Note: BPN offers paid subscriptions to individuals and businesses in the community who want to let parents know about their kid-related products and services, but the free parent subscriptions cannot be used for this purpose. See About Community Subscriptions for more information.
These posts are considered biased:
-
Posting about your own business, or that of a family member or friend. This includes mentioning your business in your post, offering to consult or advise, or signing your post with your business name. Reviews of friends' and family members' businesses are also not accepted even if you have personally used the business. (Note you can post announcements about your business if you are a Community Subscriber.)
-
Posting a review of the school or business where you work(ed). BPN does not accept reviews of a school from current or former teachers, directors, or staff at the school, or reviews of the business where you work. (Note you can post announcements about your school if you are a Community Subscriber.)
-
Posting negative comments about a competitor. You may not post criticism of another business or school that targets the same demographic you target, even if you have direct experience as a parent. For example if you teach art classes, you may not post criticism of another art class your child attended.
-
Posting a review in exchange for a favor. This includes schools that offer parent participation credit for posting reviews, businesses that repay your review with free services, and parents who are business owners posting reciprocal reviews of each other's businesses. Please see Compensated and Reciprocal Reviews for more information.
-
Recommending a professional colleague. BPN accepts only a parent's own first-hand account of their experience as a client. We do not accept professional advice and we don't post questions from parents who are seeking professional advice about a problem. Only parent-to-parent advice is accepted. See the policy on Professional Advice for more information.
-
Market research questions. This includes posting to Parent Q&A asking whether there is interest in your service, how much people would pay for it, or how to market it. This is beyond the scope of what BPN is for and it conflicts with BPN's policy about advertising and promotion. Note: BPN does accept paid subscriptions from child-related business that are seeking parents for marketing research. See Research Queries on BPN for more information.
-
Soliciting reviews for personal gain. BPN does not accept questions that are posted in order to solicit favorable reviews of a business or school that you have a personal interest in, including a school that your child attends.