Friday, June 23, 2006

Welcome Newbies!

Welcome one and all to the BPR community. This is a fun place where we are not only avid fans of the show, but also are friendly toward one another. We have a very low tolerance for in-fighting amongst each other. Please do not use our comments as a venue to pick a fight or bully other commenters. We are all friends here.

While we tend to have our favorites (ask Jan the Dan Fan!) we do not disparage or criticize any of the designers or personalities on the show. There are other sites where this is perfectly acceptable and we enjoy those sites very much, but we are trying to present something different here at BPR. This is a place where all of the designers are supported whether they are first "auf" or Grand Prize Winners. Please be polite. No name-calling. Thank you.

Another policy we insist upon is no vulgarity. I am a mom with five children and they read BPR. I don't want to be ashamed of anything appearing here. Also we have learned that the moms of our designers are reading too. As a mom I can only imagine how heartbreaking it would be to read something unkind about one of my children. Please remember that we are a family-friendly site. There may be some questionable content on the Bravo site or on some of the sites for which we provide links. We can't help that, but we do carefully monitor what appears on BPR.

Although your comments appear right away without any screening, they are monitored and can be edited or deleted at our discretion. We encourage lively discussion but no personal attacks, please. Also, once your opinion is stated, you don't have to continue to reaffirm. If someone else has another opinion just let it be. We like seeing the different opinions - all are valid and important to BPR. If everyone agreed on everything, our blog would be boring.


If you feel that your comment has been edited or deleted unfairly please do not leave another comment complaining about it - just e-mail the team and we will be happy to describe what we saw as the offense.

Interested in having an avatar next to your name in the comments? Click here for instructions on how to get a 'Gravatar.'

We also have a solid "No Spoilers" policy here. Speculation is fine, but please, if you think you "know" something ahead of time, just keep it to yourself. Thanks.

Also, please do not put links in the comments. If you have something to share with the BPR community, please e-mail it to the team and we will consider posting it. Perhaps we will even place it in a comment, but let us decide. Just as each designer has a "point of view," so does BPR. Please allow your team to choose which items to feature. Spammers will be reported to HaloScan and you will find that you will be unable to comment on any site that uses this service.

Also, your team has carefully and deliberately avoided some articles and news items which were nothing more than ugly gossip, half-truths or just embarrassments to the designers. If you post links to these in the comments, then all of our efforts are in vain. Thanks for understanding.

Also, please stay on topic. If the topic is "Congratulations, Michael" then this is not the place to say that "Vincent should have won." Get it? We will have a "reactions" post for that as well as a poll where you can enter your opinion. Stay on topic, please.

We don't expect you to agree with all of these guidelines. You might think they are unreasonable and ridiculous, but we still expect you to adhere to them. If you spot a violation of these guidelines, please send a 911 to the team. We can delete or edit comments as necessary. Let us know exactly which post and about where the offending comment is located.

We hope to have long-lasting friendships with the Project Runway designers and with one another. You may realize later that the impression that you have of one designer or another will change over time. It's hard to take back what you have said, so please consider your comments very carefully.

So, welcome all. Thanks for joining us. We really love Project Runway and know that you do too!