I have never received a duplicate myself and I think it would be a lot of fun, to see how they differ in the back. I guess with series it is more likely. I have two viewcards with a very similar picture of the same place, but different angle and different framing of the postcard around the picture, but one was an official and one from a penpal. So almost a duplicate but not quite.
I also don’t agree with this concept of duplicates, they would only be duplicates if the back was exactly identical and that is impossible. So they are different cards that happen to have the same picture!
I too don’t want to believe this.
I’m just growing suspicious, it probably is lost. ‘Ofcourse it’s just a suspicion, I have no proof, and couldn’t go to the admins with this accusation, I could report the profile, but don’t want to go down the route of naming and shaming postcrossers. Its not me, I’ve accepted that picky profiles are part of the project, write a postcard and move on’
During the summer of 2021, I had a few picky messages in the Hurray’s, but lately things have picked up, well apart from the unusal expires.
The whole thing of people deliberately not registering cards was even discussed on the old forum before I joined Postcrossing back in 2013.
If people cheat by not registering cards, then it is on them to shame and it is right to report them to the staff if the behaviour of those people bothers you.
My strategy is to not care any longer after you dropped the cards into the letterbox. Most cards will be registered quite soon, others will take longer and the rest will never arrive or will never be registered and you will usually get no information why.
I agree with this. I put about the same amount of effort in every postcard that I send, but once I drop it off at the post office, it’s up to the vagaries of the postal system. At this point, there is nothing that you or the recipient can do. I also think that a lot of people tend to forget that there’s a pandemic going on that may delay or halt deliveries. And if someone gets sick, it’s going to take them quite a while to get anything registered.
If even taking into account all of this you still feel uneasy about it, you can always contact the admins for guidance.
I recently reported someone as I felt their demands were too much. Fortunately the admins agreed.
To me it’s the fact that someone has taken the time and money to send me a postcard that makes me happy. I received one that I hated but still took the time to thank the sender. I didnt put that I hated it though.
What annoys me more than duplicates or ones that aren’t my favourites are blank or ones that just say "Happy postcrossing ". I have received both. Thankfully they are rare. I dont have a “dont send” list any more but I have put that I prefer to keep my cards family friendly. That’s because an erotic postcard would upset me due to trauma in my past.
Hello! I recently contacted the admins with a request to check one profile. As a result, the girl made significant changes, but her requirements were simply terrible!
I live in Saskatchewan and there is increasingly very little postcard choice, if you can find them at all.
I am jealous of all the choices in Europe and Asia where it’s so easy. For that reason I am always a little perturbed by people who have such a narrow focus of interests.
I also think Postcrossing has turned from a ‘people connection’ thing to a ‘i am a collector’ thing for a lot of people. But that might just me seeing the glass half empty.
I’m really sorry for this experience.
I know is easy to say: “let it go, not all Postcrossers are the same”.
But recently, is like people have chosen to become rude and ruder.
A fellow Postcrosser from the Spanish forum (new to Postcrossing, by the way), received an official postcard with the ID and one single line “write your profile in english”. I mean, if you are going to send the card anyway, why not to be kind and write something nice, meaningful, and then, drop a line about it, like: “hey, not sure if you know, but your profile should be written in english. Keep that in mind. Bye. With love…” Whatever…
It’s so easy to be nice, but this person chose “violence” to write a postcard.
Maybe the sender thought the longer message will not be understood?
Maybe the sender also is not good in writing English?
Maybe they didn’t feel it’s easy to be nice, when they are put in front of strange language? Maybe they were prepared to write a long message to someone, and then seems like the receiver won’t understand?
Maybe they have written many nice, meaningful messages to non English profiles and only get aggressive responses, or stupid ones?
Why not the non-english profile be kind and say, thank you for the card, sorry about my profile being with a language you didn’t understand.
Sounds a little drama queen (the behaviour, if it’s true) that the person doesn’t follow the rules asks extra “kindness”.
What happened to “sorry I did wrong, thanks for pointing out”.
Yes, people are rude nowadays. Old times people were embarrased to break the rules and said sorries, but nowadays they ask to be treated delicately and try to draw the attention away from the fact that they actually did wrong and make the one who points it out to be the bad guy. Seems to me.
It’s hard to tell rude gesture or straightforwardness in the case given above. I assume the short one line is written not out of rudeness but directness, even maybe the receiver felt it’s rude. Things hard to explain by written text. Sometime a “haha” can be seen as mocking or as real laugh
As I pointed, she is a new user.
Now she knows her profile must be writte in english, because that is the main language of Postcrossing.
There is a lot of new people “breaking the rules”, first time here can be overwhelming if you aren’t fluent in English, and if that first experience is like this one, probably will feel discouraged.
If they are no fluent in English, they surely understand others are not either, right? So in that case: is it useful to pretend what the sender writes means the worst possible thing?
Here we are communicating internationally from different language and cultural backgrounds. If the attitude is to see that mentioned sentence as a violent sentence, maybe it’s good to think could they change their own attitude?
The sender sent the card, and as a bonus helped the non English profiler see the part of the rules they missed. Not bad things.
I feel so sad when people request certain types of cards, and I only have one they don’t like on hand. I am new to Postcrossing, and very excited about the writing and connecting part, but it always makes me feel a little disowned and unappreciated when I can’t fulfill these requests, and that takes some of the fun out of it… All I can think about is someone receiving the card I’ve put care and attention into & being immediately disappointed.
I always wonder why people comment on these kind of things instead of writing about something else in the postcards?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know most people come from a good place and they want genuinely to help. But wouldn’t it be better if they just contacted the admins and then they would contact the person to help or reminded them? It’s not like we are the postcrossing police and, from my perspective, it’s a waste of postcard to write it.
(This is my perspective only and in no way I’m judging anyone who does it out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s just that for me is something that I don’t really understand).
I have to agree with you that it’s easy to jump to conclusions in any case since we all think so differently. However, in my opinion, @Saouri is right when saying that this kind of things can discourage especially new members. Once again, I believe it would be better if people would contact the postcrossing team instead of policing others profile.
English is my first language but there is so much to learn in terms of etiquette, rules and guidelines lines that I got overwhelmed and that’s without all the really useful information the forum provides.
I got an advice from admins I can mention about it myself. So, why not. And because most likely that’s all I will write.
Why most often I don’t write anything else, because if they don’t understand worst case I write something personal and they put it somewhere to have someone translate it
I normally write something like: “in order to others understand your profile better, please consider adding English translation”. That’s nicely written.
Still I get rude and arrogant responses. Some people don’t know how to take an advice.
So, to me seems the problem is not that someone mentions what language their profile should be, or how they mention it, but that someone’s don’t read the rules and don’t respond nicely when they are normally told that the profile should be in English.
In this case, to me, it would be weird if the card receiver would be discouraged about this.
If they don’t know English well, wouldn’t they first think they are misunderstanding? And if not, where does this certainty come that they are right, even when they know they don’t understand that language. What happens in their head? Is that not almost comical
But if they are discouraged, then they will soon find something else if not this. They are hard to please
Of course I hope they are not taking this as seriously as it appears here, and maybe even the card text is wrongly written here.
And I hope the sender isn’t reading this and be discouraged to continue, when they just tried to help a newbie.
(Ok, now looking my long message it might appear to me this is huge mistake if they don’t follow the rules and I “must interfere”.
No, to me it’s just small rule breaking and so easily fixable, that even I can mention it, like to a friend.
(And like I wrote either here or in similar thread, I have nothing against other languages , and I always try to understand the non English one, and then see the English version ))
people were embarrased to break the rules and said sorries, but nowadays they ask to be treated delicately and try to draw the attention away from the fact that they actually did wrong and make the one who points it out to be the bad guy. Seems to me. 
worst case I write something personal and they put it somewhere to have someone translate it 
, and I always try to understand the non English one, and then see the English version ))