Postcrossing is a matter of interaction, you do not do it just on your own, that is the difference to jogging or to solving a crossword in less than 7 Minites.
In order to become the top sender of your country, you have to send many cards.
As long as you send postcards, that is okay. But we have already had people, who presumably did not send cards but just requests to register the IDs. I remember, that this was discussed on the old forum. And there are obviously people, who send masses of cheap cards, while themselves just asking for expensive ones. That is not against the rules, but from my point of view it is not really okay.
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Oh yes, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the further explanation. 
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Crossing my fingers when I get an address didnāt work today.
I got : āI am a student and I donāt speak Englishā.
That was IT.
Since I donāt speak/write that personās language, I wondered what I could possibly write which might be understood. As Paulo said, this project/hobby is all about communication and connection, but I felt no connection and there was zero chance of communication. I really donāt like the phrase āhappy postcrossingā, itās like a clichĆ© now that Iāve seen it so many times, it seems so careless to me (as opposed, presumably to what was intended) that I wouldnāt write that to anyone.
In the end I carefully wrote in block capitals (for ease of translation?) that some more information on profile would help, and wished them well for Christmas. 
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I donāt understand how this fits this topic. Surely this person is not hard to please as they donāt have requests on their profile.
It is, indeed, about communication and connection. And, in my opinion, itās also a lot about empathy, which the world needs a lot more of these days.
Itās very possible the person is making an effort to expand their horizons by joining a website in a language they donāt understand well. Thatās something I would probably think many times before doing it myself, for fear of embarrassing myself.
They will probably manage to translate what you wrote, so I see it as a good opportunity to show a young student that the world has many friendly and welcoming people.
Having said all this, I hope this topic doesnāt turn into a complaint corner about other people. Letās try to keep the discussion productive or at least constructive, or else I donāt see the point of keeping this open. Any thoughts or suggestions on how to improve things?
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If you had asked in the forum, Iām sure someone could have helped you to translate a little message into the recipientās language. Iām offering my help for the future. Feel free to ask for translations into German, French or Italian.
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I like this idea. Could we maybe have a thread somewhere here where members can offer card writing translations? Google translate is such a poor tool sometimes and this would give a great chance to communicate more.
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Yes, yes, yes! That would be great. We have the ātranslate this card for meā, but it would be nice to have the reverse. 
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It could be calledā¦ Translate me for this card
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I think, these people disappear after a short time, for they will not be satisfied with this non-communication. But you are now the unlucky one, who should try to please this person without knowing anything about her.
I suggest you send her a nice view card of your area and write a few short sentences about the card and then let it go.
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As someone who teaches beginning English to adult immigrants, I often end up needing to communicate with people when we donāt have much shared language. Itās still nice to say hello, even when itās frustrating that you canāt say a lot to each other.
I find that people beginning to learn a language are most likely to understand short sentences about basic daily topics. āI have two children,ā or āI like to cook,ā or āthe weather is cold here,ā or āI live with my mother.ā Also, short direct sentences are likelier to make it through Google translate in one piece. The more clauses you have, the more problems you have.
Anyway, itās still nice to say helloā¦
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It reminds me of a friend of mine who I recommended this site to said he liked this until professional collectors took over and it imbalanced things.
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Professional collectors? 
How did he come to that conclusion?
Possibly like the person you mentioned?
Those persons havenāt taken over anything, they are just very few and I doubt that they can earn any money from their behaviour.
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Hello, fellow EAL teacher!
Thank you so much for this, @paulo 
I invited a student who doesnāt speak English fluently (yet), and have thought of showing Postcrossing to others, but I need to feel confident that people will show them empathy and make them feel welcome 
if they receive a card telling them they did something wrong, theyāll never send a postcard again.
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That is kind of you! I enjoy seeing your kindness around.
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Iād send one of my food sketches. I donāt put them in envelopes ever and Iām going to at least write Hello from Hayward on it.
I would hate to see the thread shut down!
To me,sometimes one really just wants to vent, and there is nothing wrong with that (as long, of course, as whomever you are venting about cannot be identified)! And there are definitely some roll-your-eyes hard-to-please profiles on the Official site.
I agree that some posts in the thread seem to create problems where none exist ā and I think that your answer in this case was spot on. But that also happened in the old Forum, and sometimes it also got a bit āflame-yā although because fewer people participated, it was shut down sooner I think.
If I remember correctly, in the old Forum if someone started complaining about someone undeservedly or if a conversation got too personal it would be reported and the post(s) would be removed. Discourse also allows us to flag things if we think they are out of line. Maybe people should take more advantage of this.
I donāt know how much of a burden it would be, though, because of the increase in New-Forum activity.
Another solution could beā¦if you are complaining about a āpickyā profile, make a concrete suggestion about how to improve it! For example āIf they would remove the huge ānoā list at the end, I would be really happy to send something from their wishlist.ā
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