We definitely understand that people need a place to vent sometimes, and picky profiles are a problem in Postcrossing… but I think what Paulo was getting at is that we would prefer to put the community’s energy to good use finding ways to fix this issue instead.
So… does anyone have ideas of how to gently push these profiles in a good direction? How can we help people understand that Postcrossing is more about connecting than collecting?
Over the years, we’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this, and even implemented some ideas, some more successfully than others. I’ll run you through some of them.
Profile moderation - This is basically a revision mechanism, that emails people about a problem with their profile and prompts us to review the profile when it changes. We use it on the more extreme cases, but it’s too one-on-one and thus not enough to move the tide or make a dent.
Automatic warnings - Some words on profile texts trigger an automatic warning on the Settings page, reminding people to not be demanding on their profile (things like “I only want to receive…)”. Although automatic triggers and filters are not perfect, we’ve measured a decrease in profiles with this kind of language, so that seems to have had some success. Naturally, it’s not the kind of solution that fits all the cases, and we sometimes stumble on nice profiles that trigger the warning accidentally.
Detailing - One possible approach would be to go the Couchsurfing way, and break down the profile into different fields: “about me”, “hobbies”, “philosophy”, “one amazing thing I’ve done”, etc. and include one textbox for “postcard interests”. We find the solution clunky though and not very conducive to creativity. Besides, how does one convert the existing profiles into this solution? And how would be prevent that only the “postcard interests” field would be filled and the others skipped, making this solution useless?
Profile ratings - The most complicated solution would be a hidden rating system, a sort of gamification mechanism for profiles. Implementing it would be complicated and we don’t like the idea of ratings very much, and we’ve stayed away from them since the beginning… but in practice we know how powerful numbers are. Tell someone their profile is a 6 out of 10, and you will see things moving upwards almost instantly, as people always want more/better — especially if there are incentives to a higher number.
As I’m sure you can imagine, there are a million tricky parts to this approach. What questions does one ask to make sure the answers we receive match our expectations of a “good” profile, while still letting people be creative? How do we make sure the replies are unbiased? If we don’t let someone review a profile they’ve exchanged a postcard with (to prevent the good or bad interaction from tainting the review), what incentives do people have to review random profiles? How can we prevent this from turning into a “revenge system”? And should there be penalties or rewards for profiles according to their ratings? …
Anyway, we haven’t found good solutions to all these questions, and this last idea definitely feels like overkill… but on the other hand, sometimes that’s what it takes for the tide to turn.
These are just some ideas though — we’re open to others and we’d love to hear your thoughts! If you’re part of other communities or platforms with an automated system that works towards a certain goal, tell us about it!
I think in the end we have to live with a few picky profiles and they are not really a problem if one has a lot of slots like e. g. me, but they are a problem if you are quite new and have just 5 or 6 slots and wait desperately for a free slot to write a card, for in this case it is really a torment if you are afraid you have to wait 60 days for you cannot fulfil one of the wishes.
In these cases, I think, it only helps to ask the suppost to check the profile of the addressee - what you called profile moderation - and to vent a bit in this forum, not in a way that the addressee feels accused
I think the problem is what people consider picky; everybody has a different definition. Some people think that anyone who lists some wishes of themes they really enjoy are picky. I personally don’t. I love knowing that something I have chosen will be loved by the receiver, so I enjoy when someone lists themes they like. Having such a wish list doesn’t make it a demand. I also make the effort to write nice, personal messages because connecting with others is great! I’ve made some great friends through Postcrossing.
If profiles were being policed in such a way where we couldn’t mention any wishes at all, then my opinion is that you would lose members. Maybe not, but I would no longer participate if others were rating my profile or if I was told I wasn’t allowed to mention that I love x, y, z cards, but don’t wish to receive religious cards, for example.
It’s honestly disheartening reading through this thread and seeing what small things trigger some members. To me, the truly picky profiles are so rare that it seems overboard to go to such great lengths to police them. Any time there has been an actual problematic profile, a simple report to the admins clears everything up (and within a timely manner, in my experience).
Perhaps not a popular opinion, but it seems to me that some of the pickiness actually comes from the side of the sender and their interpretation of someone else’s profile.
Now you judge senders for their complaints about profiles that you do not know.
There are really picky and demanding profiles. I have come across a few of them. Yes, they are very few, but they are really annoying, particularly if you are a beginner with just 5 or 6 slots and you want to please everybody as good as possible for you are not sure if they otherwise “forget” to register your card and you have to wait 60 days to get the slot free again.
@RalfH no judgement here. I was just trying to offer another perspective that pickiness can come from both sides, and was only considering some of the comments mentioned in this thread in regards to what some found picky (maybe because it has somewhat veered off topic?). I do agree with you that picky profiles do indeed exist and absolutely if you are a beginner, coming across such a profile can be frustrating. I don’t want to discount that at all.
Maybe the “postcard interests” option would become usable only when other parts have some information written on them?
Although I prefer these free-form profiles.
Most of the profiles are nice. Sometimes I read the profiles of latest supporters just out of curiousity .
Perhaps, when getting an address, a reminder/note would appear, telling that the sender is allowed to choose any card despite of what the profile says? But, might it become annoying to see it every time?
It seems to me that if you made the box presented to you when you initially sign up, the one which says something like “tell us something about yourself”, mandatory to type something, it would deal with the Empty Profile/s situation/scenario at a stroke. (But only for new sign-ups, it wouldn’t deal with the existing empty profiles, but it would be a start.)
I’d rather get a “send me anything” than an empty profile and I’m not alone on this one. At least “send me anything” is communicating with people who get your address, as opposed to a blank white space.
I really like the freedom of building up the profile on “empty sheet” and let the creativity to rule on it. It is fun to sometimes just click around the site and read the profiles, explore how other postcrossers have written them and sometimes get even ideas on own profile.
I also feel like an empty profile is a choice. Yes, it is harder to connect, select the card and find something to write about, but somewhere there the profile’s owner had to make an active decision to leave the profile empty and whatever made them to do that decision has to be something they prefer. I usually send empty (or nearly empty) profiles cards with poems or song lyrics, more and less randomly selected by my mood at the moment.
But would it be an idea to have somekind of “sample profile text” or “if you don’t know what to write you can pick up something from here”? I mean like short, general text with hellous and happy Postcrossing wishes. Could help those who struggle with writing English and maybe give them help with building up their profile without making it “fill in this info” type of system. Just a raw idea that one, but it could something maybe? But overall, I think the option of leaving an empty profile should be allowed.
I now have a box full of calender postcards, which I usually only send if it fits perfectly to a profile. But when someone write “any nice card” or similar, it’s one of those cards.
The cards are ok, but I wouldn’t send them in a row, because this makes it a bit boring.
About the what to write … Sometimes still a struggle. But mostly I then share my opinions about the image of the card.
I’m probably going out on a limb here, but I take a more squinty-eyed view of empty profiles than that. Especially when it’s someone who has been doing it for years. To me, an empty profile is like a closed door. Either they want to be mysterious (which fails) or they simply have nothing to say to the world. If they have nothing to say to all those people who in good faith send them a postcard, why should anyone be interested in them? (For clarity, I am not talking about postcrossers in countries where English might not be an option for them.)
Re: the sample profile text, I think when registering that is already on offer (prompts about what to write). I could be wrong about that but it rings a vague bell.
I like to think them more like extra-strangers. The idea is to send a postcard to stranger and receive one from another stranger, right. So if the profile is empty then it is extra-stranger. You know nothing of them. Time to let the creativity to decide. I guess, the empty profile is same than “send me anything” for me, so I then have freedom to send them any card and write anything on them. I am interested on these extra-strangers just as I am interested on other postcrossing members; they are all interesting people with their stories!
People also send RAK cards without really knowing anything about the person they are sending them to, and I have actually had very pleasant communications with empty profiles before. Many of them write long thank you messages back, and I have also received few fully written cards from empty profiles.
Now that I think one reason for leaving the profile empty might be the fact that profiles are public to all registered members. I can well imagine that for some people it might be uncomfortable to know that anybody can read about them, and they prefer to keep the information between the people they are exchanging postcards with. Would that be something to think about? Giving the option to have public profile only for those you are exchanging cards with?
Let’s put it this way. Supposing you had to sit down with this person for 5-10 minutes, because that’s the Rules. And they wouldn’t look at you let alone talk to you. They just sat there with their arms folded and eyes closed, or looking somewhere else?
I keep coming back to Paulo’s line about “communication and connection”. If you have no feeling of communication or connection with this person whatsoever, how can you communicate with them? Communication is a two-way street: otherwise, it’s a monologue.
Profiles being visible to registered members is part of the deal. And when I’ve had to send a postcard to a blank-profiler, I’ve had no information back from them…
@Stevyy it’s not a “big big drama”, it’s just a(nother) debating point.
Interesting enough, that has happened to me several times at work! Only that I got to sit down with them much longer. Okay so, I understand it can feel difficult and hey, it is okay. You don’t need to be super-duper friends with everybody or have perfect conversations with every single person you meet. We all handle our postcards different ways.
But how about, you sit down with the person who has their arms folded and eyes closed. They are still there. They are there with you. Now, if it is your turn to start, you do so. Say “hey, today I saw a frog in park and had ice cream for lunch. How was your day? Everything going well there?” Do they reply? Maybe, maybe not. If they don’t okay, well you get up after 10 minutes and that’s it. You never need to meet them again. Time to walk to next room and have 10 minutes chat with the other stranger!
If you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do something, something might happen. You can be the one to start. There isn’t really anything to lose here. You will still get card from somebody else and get to send card to next address.
@meiadeleite some thoughts on your ideas about helping people with profiles:
Profile moderation
Although it may not “move the tide” I think it does help in, as you say, extreme cases, and should be continued for those. People can report a profile and then the admins can respond. I have done this several times myself.
Automatic warnings
I think this is for the most part also ok. Maybe the wording for the automatic warning can be tweaked a bit if there are nice people who are accidentally “called out” for doing nothing, or maybe at the end there can be a “please contact the administrators if you believe you have received this warning in error” message, or someting similar.
Detailing
This, I don’t like so much. The stated purpose behind Postcrossing is “send a postcard, get a postcard.” Period. When I signed up I was really surprised to get detailed profiles asking for certain cards, disclosing personal information about themselves, etc. etc. Some people on this thread have made it clear that they consider a blank profile to be as or even more demanding as a profile with a mile-long “no” list. I personally consider a blank profile to be a perfectly valid option, unless Postcrossing decides to officially change into a “make a social contact by postal mail, receive a social contact by postal mail” project. That would of course be valid, it would just be different than what Postcrossing has been up until now and should be clearly stated.
Profile ratings
OH, please NO, and thank you for refraining from this from the get-go. If there were such a system and I knew about it, I would set my account inactive and just participate in the Forum. One of the best things about Postcrossing IMHO is that it refrains from this kind of mobbing/peer pressure.
Hard agree with this. I came to Postcrossing from Swap Bot, which I found so draining, with the ratings, and doing everything extra ‘right’ to get the extra heart rating, and then people following up on why you didn’t give a heart rating…
Postcrossing is cut and dried, there is one metric, registering the card (which records both the sender and the receiver’s activity). Having only that one simple rule actually leaves everything else open - you can be as creative as you want with your card choice and message, because you only have to do this one thing.
Reading threads like this on the forum I think distorts the issues and makes them seem more frequent (and I read these and sometimes post, I’m not criticising). The vast majority of interactions on the main site go ahead without issue. It’s the 80/20 rule, except I’m guessing it’s actually more like 95/5.
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