But that would not explain why someone receives many cards from that same country - the repeated country only applies to where you send.
I recently sent to a member who had many cards from meetings, and from same meetings. like four same meeting card from a virtual meeting in Finland, again three or four meeting cards from an event. I think it’s just the same happened here, now it only was from a rare country.
Yes, I meant the SENDERS (the ones on the meeting) maybe selected repeated country
How would that increase the possibility for someone to receive three cards from the same meeting?
(If you are writing about that even 
I thought you offered this as an answer why the one person got three cards from this rare country meeting.)
Now that’s an exaggeration:
I think that if ALL participants in the meeting have selected selected countries (for traveling cards for Germany), the probability for ALL German postcrossers to get one or more cards from this meeting increases. (Maybe other postcrossers have 2 cards from this meeting, they probably haven’t all been registered yet. but it’s just an idea, I was never good at math 
or Maybe I’m wrong in thinking or writing 
)
I would be sad too Especially if the messages is nothing but a bunch of signatures/ or those ink stamps. . 
Oh, now I think I got the idea 
, yes, this could have something to with it.
I’ve noticed that when I request multiple cards in a row, that the system gives out my address also multiple times in a row.
I’ve seen cards from i.e. Germany with almost the same ID-numbers, sent to me on the same day.
That’s my experience too!
Maybe the “variety” of receiving is also related to the volume. I have an extreme example:
I turned back to active mode after being inactive for half a year on Aug. 31 and the gap between my sent & received was probably 50 then. So far I have received 30 official cards and 16/30 of them were from Germany. Before when I received about 2-3 cards at a time, the variety was huger based on my official stats. So I think as soon as my address was released, it was drew 50 times immediately; and the need of members in Germany was extremely huge so my address was automatically be used to make up that.
Another factor could be that postcards from Germany would reach me faster so they formed the first bunch of cards I received. The another 20 cards are still being delivered and they might be from many other countries.
I think it’s not fairly, and too much repetitive now.
After I’ve joined Postcrossing almost 1,000 days (about 2 years and 9 months) with about 300 sent and 300 received postcards. I found that more than 2/3 of all sent postcards were sent to Europe, and less than 50 postcards were sent to Asia. Moreover, 51% of these sent/received postcards are sent/received from 4 major countries only (Germany, USA, Russia and Finland) according to my country distribution chart.
I understand that the destinations for sending the postcard are randomly selected by the Postcrossing’s algorithm that is the surprising and advantage for it, and it’s ok to send to these destinations (because these postcards reached to their destinations almost all and timely, and they have the effective postal system).
But sometimes I feel bored with the repetitive destinations like this and I want to send the postcards to another new or rare destinations to enhance the new experience from Postcrossing and know another new postcrossers and new destinations more that it makes me feel less bored for Postcrossing.
e.g. I’m in Thailand, but I used to send only 4 postcards for ASEAN countries in 3 years only with no sending to my own country at all. Or in 3 years, I received 5 postcards from Indonesia, but I sent only one postcard to Indonesia in 3 years although the postal service between Thailand and Indonesia is normal.
I’m OK to send the postcards to all although I get the repetitive countries, but I think more repetition, more bored for Postcrossing.
If Postcrossing sets the algorithm with less repetitive, many postcrossers with enjoy more.
I understand that it was not nice for the child. But later she will be able to tell it as an adventure, because it doesn’t happen to everyone. She will still get a lot of nice cards, each one different, and then she won’t have to worry about those four anymore.
I understand your frustration but the countries where you send depend on where are active postcrossers. If you look at the statistic, around 2/3 of postcards are sent from Europe so inevitably the same amount must go to the same place as well (because for every postcard you send, you get one back).
There is nothing Postcrossing can do about it. Sending more postcards to less active countries and less postcards to the more active ones would mean that people from less common countries would receive 20 postcards for 1 postcard they send and people from countries where Postcrossing is popular would have to send 50 postcards to get 1 postcard back. That would be far from fair.
If you want more variety, you can search for people that you would like to exchange postcards with either here in the forum or through the search page on the main website (don’t forget to tick the “interested in direct swaps” box).
It is a great way to expand your collection!
I’ve spotted a quirk in the system at the moment which is that my address seems to be released to 10-15 postcrossers, all at once, every now and then. This results in me being inundated with postcards at one time - then nothing for ages.
This is my received list. You can see almost everyone pulled the addresses on one or two dates.My sent dates look nothing like this!
Anyone know why this might be?
I noticed this too some time ago. It seems that whenever you get 1 more sent that received, your address is given out not only for that one postcard that has just been registered but for all your travelling ones as well. So if you have 9 more postcards travelling at that moment, your address will be given to not 1 person but to 10 people or so.
How weird! Thanks for explaining.
After reading your post I thought to go & check my own, I’ve only been Postcrossing since last August (99 cards sent & received at present) & on 6 occasions my address has been given out 6 times on the same day & on one day last month it was given out 11 times! Crazy x
This is discussed already in this thread:
From what I remember from the answers in the thread, it’s an inevitable part of postcrossing, especially for all of us who don’t live in one of the top three countries.
This is how I think it works too, after you seem to be reliable member, and your travelling ones are truthfully travelling, and eventually arriving, it’s “safe” to already give the address.
In optimal world, it would also give a somewhat even flow of cards, thinking some cards need longer time to arrive than others.
But, if and when all go to same/same speed country, it can cause mail to arrive soon, even before some travelling are registered. And if your country collects the mail certain way, delivers certain days, this makes the effect more strong.
Good thing is, you can never know if there is still one or few travelling to you
One example where I think the algorithm succeeded:
On 21st March my address was given 13 times. Only 1 of mine was registered that day!
But: the cards arrived after travel times 7-23 days, me getting those one 5 different days. (And I only get mail 2-3 times a week, so I think this could not have been better.)
My address had gone to NL, US, GE, GB, TW, JP and CA. Maybe there still is some travelling to me from that day ?
So, even when it looks unbalanced, to get so many cards when only one is registered, it can result this well, and how I think it’s meant.
I think the algorithm does the best it can. I’m fairly sure that right now, Russia, Germany and the US are in the top 5, possibly the top 3 countries. I live in the US and to be fair, have my account set to allow me to send and receive within my own country as well. I have to admit, though, that since USPS doesn’t accept mail for Russia, something like 49% of my cards go to other US addresses, 49% to Germany and 2% to the rest of the world. It’s great for my budget, but I have to admit, lately, I get super excited when I get a “rare” country like France.
We are still very new to PostCrossing. My 8 year old is obsessed with it and just loves to send postcards that she hopes will make the days of people brighter. So far, we have mailed out 9 cards. We have the options to send domestically and to repeated countries ticked to be fair and because for us, it’s definitely about the friendly connection, not the country. Two of our cards have so far gone to Russia and we don’t really mind 
We have a blast picking and writing the card. The rest have gone to places my 8 year old finds exotic and fun, though. But for her, anything that is abroad is fun and exotic, so… 
