What 
sorry but you are happy to “pay” about the card that never arrived, if you get a false sent card amount? It never occured to my mind, that the sent amount can be so important 
so important, that it can be faked, just to have the sent amount one bigger. Would it not bother you at all that it’s not true?
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I’m giving an explanation about the money aspect of things.
When money is short this is an important factor.
The number of sent cards is totally irrelevant, but having cards expire means that you won’t receive cards yourself, untill you sent enough that got registered.
In money terms it then means that in my case I would have “payed” €5,= for a card I then receive.
With 2 cards or more expiring this amount rises…
I think ‘fake’ numbers are less of a problem then postcrossers quitting because they can’t afford this wonderful hobby anymore.
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I understand, I just didn’t think someones can think it that way.
I don’t myself think that I pay to get a card back; I get a card back if mine is registered.
Don’t you think this way (team registering cards) could tempt people thinking, if they don’t send the card at all, they save their money? And they will get their card anyway? If someone looks like not beeing online, they won’t waste their money, but they will get a card anyways.
Some cards you send doesn’t arrive, some cards sent to you doesn’t arrive. It evens out that way, I like to think.
They don’t have to quit, they can send as little they afford.
And there is always hobbies people can’t afford. I do understand the money issue in a way, no one likes to waste their money, but when thinking too much of it, people can get too strict, and maybe only sending to “sure” addresses. Instead I think, I buy a beautiful or interesting card, a piece of art, that I can look for a while, like a visit to a museum, a nice stamp, like a sticker, I write the card (which I like), and mail it (which I like). So my way of thinking is I pay about the sending experience. That is what I get in return for my money. So even if no one ever gets it, or registers it, I had fun 
But obviously there are very different ways to think the money thing, and it depends on so many things, I understand someone wants a card in exchange. Then some get even more than they send, and then complain about it 
. It sure is a tricky thing to run Postcrossing, I believe.
But faking the sent amount on purpose, please no.
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I think I need to add, the thing people not planning to send cards is real. Before I joined, I read a Postcrossing forum, that was a certain countrie’s “own”. There, many people advised not to send a card if the person looks like they’re not online, or if they were new, to wait if any cards are registered before sending anything to them. 
There was someone telling they should send the cards, but many were thinking the postage is too high to waste on these. Giving them a guarantee to get their card registered, would likely to increase that behaviour.
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These many should quit Postcrossing if they are not willing to risk the loss of a card. And you are right, those people should not be encouraged by getting a card registered, which they never sent.
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I would think this hobby is as affordable as you make it or need it to be. Say, my money is short-I can only afford to select one or two addresses to send postcards to a month. I can then choose to be even more excited to receive them or on their arrival elsewhere as it is not as much of a regular occurrence.
I know I buy 2 strips of stamps a month and stock up on postcards a little at a time. I only send what that amount of stamps allots me. That’s the amount of money I’m willing to put into it. My mailbox is quite full and I’m almost always actively sending cards.
I have 3 expired cards. It does not cause me concern.
I have sent a second card at times during slower months to some expired and that card has arrived and been registered.
I think we can choose what a grieves us and certainly a imperfect postal system and imperfect people are not worth my frustration.
I would also say we are in a deadly pandemic and I’m fearful that some inactive accounts may have taken ill or even passed. There’s no way to know.
Just my take.
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Yes, I had the exact same idea - I just checked all expired cards and in many cases the receiver has not been active for 3 month and some is even 6 or 8 - basically they stopped around the time I sent the postcard. Even if they received my cards, they did not registered it - and as someone also mentioned that todays mail prices are terrible and paying 2 euro for card that that was forgotten - I do not like the idea. If it gets registered even around 300 day automatically - and I received a card in returned, then that would be ok.
Where the receiver is active and the card is simply lost, of course it can be left alone and after 365 day lost. I am ok with that!
(At the moment I have 15 expired cards and it is a lot for me + the most of them are to newer members or inactive members)
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There really is no winning or any better alternative. The mods and administration have set rules in place.
Of course it all cost money.
Some things to consider:
Send fewer " official cards "
Consider doing trades, direct swaps, tags and Round Robin’s on the Forum.
I’ve taken a break from Official cards.
Tags trades and direct swaps have arrived to locations faster than sending officials.
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I agree, there should be a threshold of say 6 months. If user is inactive for that long, all the travelling cards get registered. I have cards to members you went inactive around the time I sent and haven’t been back on site for more than 4-5 months.
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Yes, please. It’s kind of frustrating when cards expire not because they were lost but because the intended recipient clearly stopped doing Postcrossing for whatever reason. There is already the auto-register option when someone’s address changes, so, why not implement that for cases in which a person simply stops logging in? A threshold of 6 months seems perfectly reasonable to me.
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What would happen when the person logged back later? He would see received cards that he maybe never received…
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True, but, the same is already the case when someone moves and changes their address. Cards on the way to the old address are automatically registered in that case, and that includes cards that may never have arrived at either address. Still, compared with cards being never registered because the user - within their own responsibilities - moved while the card was in transit, that’s clearly the “lesser evil”. I think the same can be argued if someone logs back on after more than six months: if they didn’t register their received cards in the meantime, it’s their own problem if the system has to do their job for them… After all, the persons who sent those cards deserve to receive a card in return, which just doesn’t happen if the system lets the cards expire forever. And, again, if that includes one or two cards that didn’t arrive, I’d still consider that the “lesser evil”, compared to tens of users losing their cards and postage (which is a lot of money) without compensation simply because someone - for whatever reason - took a break from Postcrossing.
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But what if they didn’t register them because they never received them? Someone moving is a different situation because the person chooses the option of automatic registration. I just think it would be very confusing for the person, althought this whole situation of disappearing from postcrossing isn’t very common I believe.
One thing that comes to my mind is the situation in China. Postcard are delayed for many months and if someone doesn’t feel like sending with the prospect of receiving only in far future, they may not log in for months because they don’t receive the postcards that are on the way to them. So they would get automatically registered. Can you imagine the unjust feelings it would stir if those people would find cards registered as received by them? Have you seen the amount of hate caused by Postcrossing stop giving out Chinese addresses? (although it doesn’t in fact affect the Chinese users because they wouldn’t be receiving anything because all the postcard from abroad are stuck in overflowing post offices in China) Now imagine all the postcards they haven’t received yet all get registered. If I was in that situation, I would consider the decision to stop giving out my address to be very reasonable but if the cards got registered, I would be mad. It looks very, very bad.
All I want to say is that I think the situation we are talking about is quite rare but the impact of the change may be bigger than expected. So I think it is important to consider also the edge cases and whether it couldn’t cause more harm than good.
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But how can you possibly know that this is the reason that someone didn’t register a card?
The only way you could is if they posted something explicit on their profile to say they were leaving and wouldn’t register cards, in which case, sure admin could step in. But has that ever happened, or are people assuming?
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But I’m new.
If people don’t register the card, then I can’t receive any nor can I send additional ones out. Therefore, I am penalized even though I actually went out to buy postcards, wrote them out, purchased stamps and went to post office to mail…so yes, the money is spend, but I’m out a lot more than money.
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I think it is common practice for some web services to delete accounts that have been inactive for over a year. If a postcrosser hasn’t logged in for a year, then their account is automatically deleted and the traveling postcards registered. While this may still fail to catch the early postcards traveling over a year because they are removed from the system, it makes sense to me: For an inactive account, most postcards were not registered by the recipient while a few did go missing.
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Yes, welcome 
You have joined on 7th August and already two of your sent cards are registered, that’s good, right?
Two cards are on their way to you, maybe third one also, just in case.
People do register their cards, as you see with your sent ones.
You can send additional cards even when the cards would not be registered - after 60 days the card expires, you get a new slot (the card can get registered after the 60 days, so it’s not “lost”).
But, yes, there are members that disappear. Something else comes up, a baby borns, a nice partner appears and mesmerises you, new job gives no free time, a sudden moving, no interest. Sometimes they come back. I always think they still mostly get my card, so no money is waste in sending. And in return, some cards to me are lost, so I waste others time and money.
Like I wrote earlier, if such moderator registering should happen, I wish it were different “column” to them, maybe a temporary one, so that if/when the person comes back, they can register the card for real, and it will look as sent and received.
And think, you are new, sometimes member suspect new members disappear, and worry their card won’t get registered. Would it feel nice and ok, if people think this about you, and that they won’t send the card at all, because their cards will be registered eventually. So you would not get a card, only notes about a registered card would be added to your list later when you were bored and leave when you don’t get anything.
So, don’t only think your cards are maybe not arriving and you are penalised, but, to someone, you are the possible not-registering, soon to be disappearing, suspicious looking member. I wouldn’t want this kind of thinking happen any more than it now does nor encourage members not to send the card because there is the back-up of automatic registrations.
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If this was a common practice for Postcrossing, I wouldn’t be here.
I have had a couple of times breaks when I didn’t log in for a year or longest break was 3,5 years. I wouldn’t have started again with a new profile and lost all earlier data. So hopefully this will never happen.
(And if someone is wondering I was polite enough and registered all cards before my breaks.)
I also don’t like the idea of moderators or system registering cards. If the card is not registered by the member then it’s not.
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If someone has not logged in on Postcrossing for over half a year, it’s very clear they’re not registering any received cards. It’s not clear why they’re not registering them - but then, why would that be the sender’s problem?
It’s good that you did that - however, unfortunately, many members who take a break or quit Postcrossing altogether do not. Half my expired cards are to people who simply disappeared for whatever reason. (I resend the others, of course.) And I would really like the system to register cards in that case, because otherwise, it penalizes the senders for other people’s failure to abide by the Postcrossing rules.
Eh. You really think people won’t send a card because a member is new?!? I mean, it will block the travelling-card slot for at least (!) half a year, and that’s only if that person really doesn’t log back in… O_O I think the risk of that is quite low, really.
Yes, I know some members are thinking not to send to a new member. Even giving advise to another member, to not send, but wait until they register some cards.
Not sending will block the travelling slot for 60 days, same what happens to a card that is actually sent.
Why you think it would be half a year? Or what do you mean?
Some members think, that new members are risk member, and are likely to stop. So, they think it’s best not to send a card, but wait if they register any other cards. If not, they won’t send their card. If yes, they will send their card too. But, of course they can forget to check. And, what if the new member is only waiting for a card from them. 
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