Hate to be the one who takes the wind from your sails, but I think postcrossing or postcrossing community can’t really do much about the issue. As I see (and this has already been pointed out in other threads) the major factors affecting the lack of diversity of different countries are the price of sending postcards, the amount disposable for postcrossing and postal infrastructure which all contribute to the number of members in postcrossing countries. Sure, more members in rarer countries could join through promoting, but I don’t think it’s likely postcrossing will get such a high number of members joining from e.g. Denmark, Nepal or Guatemala that it makes any difference. Tweaking the system maybe helps a bit (I’d like to hear how it’s done), but promoting is the best way in my opinion.
Honestly, agreed. I think it goes beyond just promotion, although if you live in or travel to or have friends or family in a rarer country I would certainly encourage you to promote Postcrossing in some way while you’re there, and of course to send official postcards from there if possible.
@meiadeleite or @paulo, are there official Postcrossing promotion materials such as posters or anything of the like that could be printed? I would certainly be willing to try and place some when I travel to my fiancee’s country which is a more rare one, for example.
I had previously suggested writing to Embassy staff and introducing the idea to them. They would have motivation to promote the host nation and the money to participate, but my idea was criticized. I was informed that Postcrossing is only for the citizens who live there permanently, not for people who work there (sometimes for 10+ years). Personally I think Postcrossing is for anyone who wants to participate.
Like postcrossing didn’t have any expats or travellers doing postcrossing? 
One way to let people learn more about this, is to get Post office have a link and information to Postcrossing (like German Post had at least one point).
It still will only reach the ones who look there for some reason, but good thing is, the ones who look, are already dealing with mail somehow, so they know it can take time etc.
Surprised to hear this - I have received a good number of cards from both foreign students and expats from various countries.
And since both student dorms and P.O. boxes are acceptable addresses, I don’t see what would stop people from participating.
I’ve sent from 9 countries in travel mode (technically 10, but 2 cards from Romania never made it to the recipients), roughly 70 cards in total. Not all of them were small/rare countries though and of course it won’t help with the sending part either.
+1
I’m not a permanent resident in NL but have been in the project for several years already; sending cards from the Netherlands and other (former) EU countries. Also I have received a lot of postcards from non-permanent residents in several countries.
I knew it because I coincidentally spotted the 2016 Dutch issue of postcrossing stamp, which is so colourful and different from PostNL’s regular issues.
I’ve used both options and I don’t see a difference. I mostly get Germany and USA.
I clicked on the option to getting postcards from my own country but in 13 years it has never happened.
As a newbie - what options should I check?
Member for four years and I dont want any changes in how we get new addresses. If you change something then some people will complain about that. And one person suggested we not be given addresses from our own country. I like getting cards from my own country too.
You cant please everybody.
Look at other rrs and youll find lots of different groups. Theres really something for everyone.
Errrr… ummm… one can opt out of one’s own country, no?
Yes, you can uncheck your own country, but only after 60 days you first checked it. Apparently there was a misuse with this option, like people tweaked it to sent almost only to their own country and received from abroad. So this 60-days-time frame came up.
To clarify, if you check you want to receive addresses from your own country, that does not mean you will only receive from your country. Ive had it checked pretty much always and i get a variety, not just the US.
I’m getting a lot of repeated countries, but on the other hand Australia isn’t sending mail to 72 countries at the moment which shrinks the potential country pool by a fair amount. I’d rather keep sending to the same countries than wait for the international mail to open up.
I just drew an address of someone who haven’t been online in 5 days 
.
That is not strange or is it?
Someone’s address gets in the pool when someone else receives and registers their card I think. So they do not have to be online themselves.
Just how many countries are NOT sending to Russia?
For reasons, I’m only sending 3 postcards a week. Last week I got a Russian address, another Russian address last night, even though I don’t have the checkmark to send to repeated countries turned off and I had a postcard travelling to Russia for a month. Also got a Belarus address last night when I have another travelling.
I understand postal services are weird right now, and who knows how many days these three address were waiting in the pool for someone whose postal service is sending to them.
On the other hand, as my postal service doesn’t have any outgoing restrictions (expect 3-4 countries, can’t remember which right now). I’m in a small country that never had many postcrossers to begin with, and I’m currently the only active one and being forced to send to the same country prevents people from other countries to receive postcards from me which is pretty unfair for them.
It would be nice if the system would respect the Not Send to Repeated Countries option for people in countries where the postcrossers are below a certain amount (like 10 maybe).
With so many restrictions on international mail at the moment, you would probably find you’d get a message saying “No available addresses” if you wanted to force the system to only give you new countries.
If there were no restrictions I’d agree it would be unfair, but with mail services still so impacted there’s not much that can be done at the moment.