Via the forum, lots of Postcrossers send eachother Swaps, Tags, Round Robins, RAKs and more.
I think it would be nice to have a secondary system (next to the official postcards) to register these.
This could be a unique and distinct ID
i.e. TAG-###, SWA-###, ROR-###
You could include the unique discussion id from the forum dicussion and add the postnumber (or another ID, posts get deleted often in tags and i do not know if the post id changes in this new forum)
would give: TAG-11845-28
The ID would be distinct from the official cards, to prevent confusion. I do think a lot of postcrossers would love to be able to register the sent and received tags etc. You could even build a counter to show someoneâs activities on the forum in sending cards.
And it could provide more stats! We love statistics!
Wouldnât it be a tad too complicated? Like there are tens of tags and RRâs and you can even create new ones all the time. I think monitoring and keeping up a sensible system would prove too difficult.
If you could automate it (by using the discussion ID and post ID), you could even flag the post with a status âreceivedâ to keep it simple.
Ad a button/copy-paste thingy and you could make it easy to use I think.
There are other websites that offer swaps with IDâs or registration of receipt, so I do beleive there is demand for it⌠And swapping/tagging etc. is allready happening on the forum.
I second Regndroppar in thinking that it would be too complicated and much too much work for the Postcrossing team who work flat out year round just keeping the main site going. New tags and RRs pop up all the time, and it would be problematic trying to form a code system for every single one. I like the forum as it is, and I think that a community-organised and regulated forum is the way to go. Thatâs just my two cents!
I think itâs a great idea and I would love it too, but to ease our tracking, it also makes tracking for the Postcrossing team difficult. It is an even more complicated system than the actual Postcrossing I feel.
So while it is a good-to-have, I also feel like the Postcrossing team should see if they can manage their workload before taking on this heavy project. I am good with the way it is now too.
I very rarely do any tags and swaps etc. so perhaps I donât realise just how useful this seems to those who do, but⌠Not only it seems very complicated (and I think for this reason very unlikely to ever happen - unless Postcrossing hires a lot more staff, which has a cost and you see where I am going here⌠and I know it is not their intention to have non-free components), but also Postcrossing makes it very clear that these are not official activities. What Postcrossing is, itâs the random exchanges aimed at promoting connection between random people across the world. The other activities were born out of the⌠activism, if you allow me the word, of community members, but I think there is no desire or intention from Postcrossing to regulate them or âownâ them in any way, as they do with the actual site. They are happy for them to happen, so long as the members take responsibility for them - it just so happens that the forum is the medium through which they happen. If the forum wasnât there, or if these activities werenât allowed, then they would just happen elsewhere (as they also do on Facebook and other social media).
So I donât think it is only a âtechnicalâ question but also a âphilosophicalâ one, if you see what I mean. At least this based on my understanding.
It is heartwarming to see how caring we all are for the postcrossing staff! However, I do not wish to decide for another what they think about this idea. So rather than speculating if the staff would find it a good Idea, I would rather just wait for their response on thisâŚ
Off course official PC stuff has priority, but that does not mean an activity like tagging or swapping could not be a bit more streamlined someday in the future
I got my opinion above from what the staff has said before and I think it is written somewhere too⌠Then of course, the final word is for them to say
Edit: it is implied in the Forum Guidelines https://community.postcrossing.com/faq which state that Forum Games are not official activities (and you participate at your own risk)
I too think it would be too complicated and further I donât see the point to change something which has worked for years.
And I think to write down numbers will be more error-prone (it happens fast mixing up the digits etc.).
IMO itâs better to stick to the old quote: âIf ainât broke, donât fix itâ.
I am good with the way it is now too.