I was not aware until now that it makes a difference whether you send cards to users who have been here for a very long time and have naturally received and sent many cards, or whether you send cards to newcomers.
Everyone probably enjoys their hobby - each in their own way.
Youâre absolutely right. And Iâm allowed to enjoy my hobby in my own way, too. And to express how I feel about it.
Some of the most thoughtful and appreciative Hurray messages Iâve gotten were from people with received cards in the thousands, for cards I sent that had nothing to do with any wishlists. It completely surprised me. The first few times I was intimidated to send cards to such a person, I thought âthey have seen everything already, for sure it is not possible to satisfy themâ. I did not even expect proper Hurray messages since I thought at the rate they are sending and receiving no way do they take their time with single cards. I was proven really wrong.
All kinds of Postcrossers exist in all stages here. Just because someone has thousands of sent and received cards, it does not mean they donât appreciate every single one of them. In fact some of those members are the ones that care the most, and invest much time and money into the hobby. And just because someone has only 50, 100 or 200 cards it does not mean that they are not just here to build a collection according to their specific wishlist, or that they care about whatâs written on the cards at all.
Iâve taken to sending those members cards made from my own photos to minimize duplicates issue. Agreed that I have had terrific notes from those with thousands of cards.
What did I just read? 
Of course they deserve their postcards! People put money into this hobby.
Newbies are more unreliable, you never know when they will disappear and leave the cards unregistered, I feel. Those who are more experienced and have sent more cards do this less often.
That sounds pretty harsh. Of course, people with many sent/received cards deserve every card they get. Also, Iâm pretty sure they still cherish every card that reaches them, otherwise they wouldnât be here and invest so much money and time into that hobby.
As for sending cards to new postcrossers: Iâve sent so many to people who send less than 10 cards, maybe registered a few and then never came back. This leads to many expired cards that will never be registered, which is pretty sad.
Just some advise: Maybe you should ask yourself why you registered to Postcrossing. If it is to connect with people and for the joy the send and receive postcard, great. If not, than maybe this hobby just isnât for you. Postcrossers with many sent/received cards make a huge part of cards being sent through postcrossing and keep the project alive. Having a negative feelings towards them for being more or longer involved in a hobby we all share really doesnât seem right to me.
What?!
So they could send out cards if they feel to but donât deserve a card in return for every sent card? Youâre kidding, arenât you?
I didnât know anyone had sent 30k, wow! I sent a card to a 10k member once and they wrote a nice hurray. I draw quite a few new members for officials, but otherwise itâs mostly folks from 200 to 1000 like me. Iâm almost at 900 and still enjoy receiving mail
I have received addresses for the full range of postcrossers; from an absolute newbie whoâs never received a card all the way to long time members whoâve sent & received 10k or more.
When I have an address for a member who has received many cards, for me it is an opportunity to send them a card thatâs perhaps different or unique, as they have most likely received many tourist cards already. When I get a new member, I send a card that reflects their profile or if they do not specify, a tourist card from my city, region, or country.
I recently sent to a member who had over 10k postcards, and his long profile said any postcard is a gift and is treasured. I sent him a slightly unusual political card, as I noticed he already had some political style cards in his favorites, and he had sent some politically theme cards too. He enjoyed it!
I donât know how the algorithm chooses, but I havenât noticed any pattern of getting more new members compared to old, or vice versa.
Itâs random. Sounds like youâre frustrated with some of the recent members youâve drawn recently? Trust me, Iâve been there. Many members come to the forum to express frustration with an experience they are having, hoping to gain more insight, receive understanding from others, or simply to share it because they are annoyed. Ride out the rough patches, I feel like there are many members who go through it, in their own time and for their own reasons.
I personally get disappointed by members whose profile says they are just here because they collect stamps. To me, PC is about postcards and connecting to others in the world through our love of postcards and possible other shared interests. But even then, sometimes the Hurray message just says Thank you, and nothing else, so who knows.
I donât know if this is a thing or not but for me, Iâve noticed that when I request addresses in the mornings my time and the âreceived cards per hourâ number is lower⌠I am more likely to get varied countries. However if I request addresses at a different time and the received cards per hour number is more like 800-1000, I get USA and Germany addresses back to back.
This makes no sense to me because you would think a higher received cards per hour number would mean more variety in addresses to give me, but I have tested this multiple times and itâs always more variety when itâs lower! 
Probably not a bug, but this algorithm is somehow⌠strange!
Some people have been waiting for a card of Liechtenstein for years and this postcrosser was drawn 3x within a few hours by participants of the Vaduz meetup!
How can this happen?
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Iâve noticed that when several people draw an address together or at the exact same time, they get the same person. Iâm not thrilled about it either and feel it causes further imbalance, but I guess itâs just how the system works.
Some time ago I received two postcards from Taiwan from 2 different postcrossers, written in the same handwriting. It turned out to be mother and daughter, with one of the two writing the card for the other one. 
Yeah, the same thing happened to me. I was very surprised one day when I received three identical meetup postcards from three people at that meetup. The algorithm only distinguishes accounts. It doesnât know that everyone is going to the same meetup.
My daughter received 4 identical postcards from the postcrossers meeting from Aland Island. One was sent to her twice, because it was on the way for a long time and the person thought that it was lost. Yes , yes , itâs rare place, but when the last postcard arrived, my daughter was almost crying.
But with a full random selection, such coincidences should actually hardly be possible according to probability calculations. The probability that the same person will be drawn several times within such a short time should actually be mathematically zero with this number of cards.
And the three cards havenât been drawn at the same time => there was a time delta of more than an hour or two.
Maybe the algorithm doesnât think ârare countryâ.
I for some reason think the âavailable addressâ -slot/s moves from country to country, but more like âopen for this country for x persons take it or for x timeâ, when done, next country.
I would also add that Iâve recently received a card from a person with 4k+ cards. It was sent to my other account, designed for the children I teach. It wasnât only a card children enjoyed, there was also a cool sticker, three beautiful stamps (so we learned âpuffinsâ, âcave artâ and other things, and it was really cool for my pre-teens), it was written in a beautiful handwriting that they could actually read themselves, and generally a great joy.
Iâm very happy that person drew our account!
Maybe they selected ârepeat countryâ? One sender sent many of these meeting-cards to Germany. At least that increases the possibility
