Hey!
If I got “matched” with a postcrossing newbie I would like to send some blank cards out of generousness. So
I recently asked myself, if new members would appreciate to get some extra postcards along with their regular one.
What are your experiences on that?/How do you handle this?/Did you already get some extra cards along with the official Postcrossing-ID-card?
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I think I’d be very confused, if I was new.
Also it would make them think that that’s what people do and feel that they have to do that too?
I personally don’t really like the idea of extras, it’s send/receive a postcard, but maybe I’m weird and I take guidelines too literally.
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I think that would be confusing. I think they used to have a “Welcome New Members” section on Postcrossing. Over a period of a few months, I sent multiple messages directly to new members offering Freepostcards. Maybe one or two people responded. So I ditched that and no longer do it.
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First, please check their preferences. If they love written and stamped cards, why would you send them card in envelope. Unless you send extra cards in separate envelope 
Second, many people don’t prefer sending and receiving view cards not from country of origin. If you want to send extra cards you should consider sending non view cards so they can be used.
I received extra cards once in a while. Some are useful, some are not.
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I think so too. New members sometimes don’t get the concept of Postcrossing and expect a card back, or penpalships, or even an exchange of goods… If I sent extra cards, I would specify that they don’t have to do the same. 
And I have to admit that when I was new, sending a new card was way more exciting than receiving one. 
I was matched with a new member quite a few times. Each time I simply chose a really nice card and stamp to welcome them to the community.
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One of the fun parts of postcrossing is finding nice cards to send. For my taste, apart from covering a broad choice of topics - so I can find sth. for most postcrossers - they should have something to do with me - i.e. be from where I live, have lived, or at least visited…
So for one I think it’s difficult to do this for somebody else, and on top of that you may actually be taking over a task the adressee doesn’t really want to be rid of 
However, I think there can be exceptional situations. Like if you bought a set of old postcards at a flea market including some vintage cards from Warsaw, and then drew the address of a Warsaw postcrosser,he or she would possibly be very happy to receive those cards. But even then, there are postcrossers who consider old cards trash and would neither treasure them nor send them…
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A friend of mine who is relatively new to Postcrossing would be over the moon if you sent some extra postcards along.
Sometimes we get so caught up in “what if” and what we think is expected to send or even what we expect to find in our mailbox, we forget that that spontaneous connection and little element of surprise can be nice as well.
You do what feels right for you. 
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