Repeated Postings

BPN puts a limit on the number of posts we accept from the same person, per the guidelines below.


Advice & Reviews

Reviews of schools and businesses:

BPN does not accept more than one review of the same school or business from the same subscriber. We consider any type of favorable mention of a school or business to be a 'review' since the school or business benefits from that mention given BPN's reach and standing in the community. When the same person recommends the same school over and over, it results in a disproportionate number of reviews for that school on the BPN website. Since we do not display the authors of advice and reviews on the website for privacy reasons, five reviews of the same school from one person can have the appearance of reviews posted by five different people. 

Parent Q&A - Questions: Please don't post the same request repeatedly in an effort to get more or better responses.  If you didn't get the response you were hoping for, try a different resource such as Yelp, Nextdoor, or GreatschoolsSee also: Hints for posting a question that gets good responses.

Parent Q&A - Responses: Please don't post the same advice repeatedly, such as recommending a particular personal philosophy or approach in response to a variety of requests for advice.  

NOTE: The 'repeated posts' policy for advice and reviews is enforced manually by moderators rather than automatically by the system. Therefore, multiple reviews from the same person for the same school/business are sometimes published. However, we do our best to limit reviews to one per person and we un-publish multiple reviews as we find them. 


Announcements & Events

Only community subscribers can post to these two listings. Posts are limited to 3 published announcements at a time (each about different activities) and 3 published events (each with up to 3 dates). For more info, see How often can I post?


Childcare Listing

Parents are limited to two active posts at a time, and the posts must be in different categories. Childcare providers are limited to one post at a time. All posts are published for 30 days and then you can post again. If your post is not getting the response you expected, see Hints for posting or use other resources such as Bananas in Oakland. We also ask that parents not repeatedly post reviews of the same nanny.  For more information see How often can I post?


Marketplace Listing

Occasionally people subscribe to BPN in order to use Marketplace as a smaller, more targeted Craigslist where they can run a second-hand business. This isn't consistent with BPN's mission, and conflicts with our policy about not using the free parent accounts for commercial purposes. So we've established some limits:
  • No more than 3 active posts in Marketplace at once.
  • The same item cannot be posted more than 3 times.
  • There is a maximum of 20 items per sale per year

If you have a lot of items to unload, try Craigslist, Freecycle, or your local "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook.  For more information, see Multiple Listings and Repeated Postings on Marketplace 


Parent-to-Parent Connections

This listing is intended as a way to reach out to other parents for networking and connections by making a one-time post in a highly visible forum: new posts are included in the weekly Announcements newsletter at the top, and are always among the top clicks in the newsletter. Posts remain published for 30 days, but they only appear in one newsletter. If you didn't get the response you were expecting, please wait a couple of months before posting again. The listing should not be used to publish upcoming meeting dates for a group you are forming, or other follow-ups. Instead, please collect email addresses from the parents who expressed interest in your initial post and contact them directly. If it's an ongoing group, free for parents and organized by parents, you can subscribe as a nonprofit (free) and post announcements about your meetings.