The issue here are not the newbies, but the people who have these demands on their profiles… Discouraging those should be our priority, and not the other way around. 
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Yes, that is true, but Paulo mentioned newbies quitting over the demands, so I would also view it as helpful for the newbies to emphasize the point they need not fulfil any demands/wishes/requests, besides sending a postcard to the recipient.
I also believe that splitting the profile in two parts - titled maybe “about me” and “wishes” - would be helpful. The text shouldn’t be mandatory in neither of the parts but maybe the wishlist part could only be filled if there is something in the “about me” part?
Getting rid of wishes completely I see as too harsh. When I joined, I thought everybody would send viewcards because that was what I understood postcards to be. Later on I expanded my “to send” stack to include some popular themes and also added some more obscure wishes (related to my interests or other hobbies) to my own profile.
The connection aspect on Postcrossing is an integral part of it but for me, a longtime letter writer, it is too fleeting, so I like the added value of seeing a glimpse of another corner of the world, for example. Without wishlists, this would be difficult to achieve.
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@delenn_mir I don’t think encouraging wishes in general is a good idea. We can list our interests and specific things we like to collect because that is a hobby. Wish-lists just feel like shopping lists to me.
Postcrossing isn’t about collecting postcards. I’m glad I joined before people got greedy.
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what about changing wishlist in hintlist 
How is that different from a wishlist? If someone says they like to collect “Greetings From”, “World Travel” and blue cats postcards, that is a shopping list right there?
If I say my interests include postcards with views of nature or Star Wars, is that any different than a specific wishlist, separated from the main part of the profile?
The wishlist part could even be hidden and you had to click on it to see it, and it could have the official, non-removable info that these are only wishes of this postcrosser which one isn’t obliged to fulfil. And of course it doesn’t need to be called a wishlist specifically 
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This is very different to just a list. There’s a big difference between
I like postcards with SINGLE images of
- stones (natural colour only!)
*- purple houses *
- fish (sea fish only)
- anything about the Queen (NEVER the band)
and
I like to fish and collect pretty stones. I love the Queen. One day I wish I will have a purple house.
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It says on the main site that there are over 800,000 members. Assuming about half of them are no longer active, that leaves about 400,000. Assuming that about a quarter of them are duplicate accounts, that leaves about 300,000. There’s no way anyone is going to trawl though so many accounts to discourage/edit/delete demands.
I really don’t see how you can back-edit so many profiles. Therefore, it seems to me, that this entire discussion is just that. A discussion.
I was disappointed to get a postcard with just stickers on it. Went to her profile and she said please write something about yourself, please don’t leave it blank. 
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From the first part, I would know what to look for in my postcards, from the 2nd, not really And I like to know that I’m sending something the recipient might enjoy. The fact that they like something doesn’t mean they want it on a card, IMO. Example - I like baking but I’m not at all interested in recipe cards or cards showing food/desserts.
I wouldn’t have anything to send from the first list, but it wouldn’t bother me - I would still send a card I had. I understand a newbie might feel overwhelmed (I was certainly puzzled why so many people wanted dog and cat postcards when I joined), hence my suggestion of an added official information, visible directly in the profile everytime one looks at it, that these are just wishes.
Why is saying that someone likes certain topics on cards more than others viewed as such a crime?
If the entire profile structure changed, the active users would edit their profiles themselves, to achieve result they would want (if they weren’t pleased with the automatic change).
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@meiadeleite could you please clarify if you consider any wish list, even if written nicely, as a demand? There are folks who consider any mention of a request as a demand. I think this needs clarification. If I was told I couldn’t list any of the themes I like, I would likely stop participating in the official swaps and just focus on forum games. Just trying to get a better idea of what the admins define as a demand - does that mean any wish listed at all?
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Perhaps the postcrossers with many slots, e. g. me, could kindly ask such picky and demanding postcrossers in a polite way to mind newbies. I am ready to do so, when I pull the address of such a picky postcrosser.
Do you think that would be helpful?
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I would have been disappointed, too!
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Can you honestly see that working? Without massive explosions of rage from people who’ve been here for years and years? As in WTF’s happened to my profile? > resignations from ‘old-timers’? There are hundreds of thousands of postcrossers who never go near the forum and would have no idea what’s going on.
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lol i got that too a few weeks ago. literally full with stickers (even on the front of the card, quite a bummer). i thought it was maybe a child who couldn’t write very well yet but it was a grown up person with a very long profile all talking about herself and options about what to write on a card. oh well, i do say on my profile i like a decorated card 
but there is somewhere in between. i don’t like demanding profiles at all but i do like it when people state what kind of cards they like. i really enjoy searching for the perfect postcard for someone. and sometimes i don’t have the perfect card and obviously that shouldn’t be a problem but if i can make someone happy with a card i have then absolutely.
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I agree with those who say it would be an improvement for people simply not to be allowed to say what they want or don’t want with a postcard in their profile. Let people read about you, or use what you yourself are sending as a clue, or just send you what they themselves want to send, regardless.
When I signed up, that is what I expected. I expected to be given a random address and to send that random person a postcard of my choice, not influenced at all by something they had written. I expected, in turn, to receive “surprise” postcards that would reflect what the random person sending to me wanted to send, and not what I said I wanted to receive. I didn’t think I could dictate the size of the card, quality of the paper, or whether the card came off a calendar or was a free card from a rack in the mens’ room of a local bar.
I started with a pack of “The Cutest Sneeze in the World” cat comic cards by Jeffrey Brown and was naive enough to think that those would be my first cards sent, and after they were all sent I would buy something else. Hah!!! Fortunately I have a thick skin and a wallet fat enough that I bought some more cards to satisfy the really-not-too-picky wishes that made it clear that a Jeffrey Brown cat comic card would not be appreciated, thank you very much. Now I have an inventory of many hundreds of cards (and still cannot satisfy some people’s wishlists)
I understand people dropping out. Even if you know you don’t have to send something that meets someone’s demands, who (especially a newbie) is going to be happy investing the time and money to buy, write and send a postcard to someone when they know in advance the person doesn’t like it, or wants them to “save it for someone who will appreciate it.”
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In this case I would recommend that you don’t mention baking in your profile. If I don’t have any of the cards someone lists (which is surprisingly often considering I have thousands ready to go) I look at the rest of their profile for inspiration. I think this is a pretty normal thing to do.
Because this is not a website for collecting postcards. It’s a place where you send and receive cards all around the world with complete strangers. It is rude to say you do not want something because that may be all a sender has. Maybe they have just started and all they have is multi view photos of kittens?
I can’t see any way these cards could offend anyone. If someone does mind they are in the wrong place. My first sent cards were images of blurry paintings with terrible poems in Finnish on them.
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To be honest, I find this a bit too narrow-minded. I for example list things I’d love to see on cards and state that these are just suggestions and everyone can still send what they want. I even added another sentence to make this more clear after reading this thread. I never saw polite lists starting with “I like these, but everything is welcome” as demands, even as a newbie. And I had no problem sending out all the cards I had, even if they had nothing to do with the recipients’ profiles!
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But baking is an important hobby of mine and I would like to share this fact about me with others. Why shouldn’t I? This was just an example to show you that one set of interests doesn’t necessarily overlap with another set of interests. We could still discuss baking in the message and connect over that, I just would enjoy this this discussion more on a postcard with a local view than one showing ice-cream, for example 
Where have I said anything about negative wishlists or listing things I don’t want? 
Quite the opposite. To me saying that I like viewcards is the same as saying that I like Star Wars. It’s not meant to limit the sender’s choice, it’s supposed to be helpful.
Example from my own Postcrossing history - I bought a set of postcards at a local museum, reprints of old photos from their collection - not because I liked them personally but because I knew others enjoyed similar topics. One of them was a photo of a known historical figure (not overly famous). And then one day, a postcrosser mentioned in their profile it was their dream to receive a card with this specific person, so naturally I chose this card and the recipient was very happy to get it. If they didn’t have this specific wish in the profile, I most likely wouldn’t have send them this specific card and we both wouldn’t have had this tiny moment of joy.
Also, just to be very clear - I do not collect anything via Postcrossing (well unless you count the fact that I keep all the received cards - because they remind me I’ve been in touch, however briefly with so many people from around the world). I don’t have online albums (except for my wall) nor am I interested in all these specific series, but I am curious if someone will send me a card like that if I don’t list them in my profile (so far not but then again my profile has been set to inactive for a good while now).
Long story short - I like wishlists, they help me bring people joy with the card I’m sending 
That is the main goal here, surely?
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I like them.
First cards are always something special. Maybe not in image, but I think I got always great messages from newbies.
A new postcrosser is the last person who should excuse for not having the perfect card.
It’s the spirit of a card that counts for me.
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I would have enjoyed these cards very much - one of my long-time dreams is to learn Finnish and any contact with the language makes me 
Even if I have to use Google Translate for now
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