daring thesis: "the more postcards one sent, the less effort people put in the next card".
I know, not everyone is like that and this thesis probably puts me in an uncomfortable position to loyal members who are part of this site for a longer time than I am even able to read (I am 27 now, tbh).
I noticed a strong correlation in the 1/2 year I am now a part of postcrossing: If a member got like thousands of cards he/she just writes “thank you for the card” or any generic copy-paste text in the hurray message, ignoring any call to action I might have written on the card. When I receive a card and it is randomly chosen + having an unpersonal text like “happy new year” or “happy postcrossing” and nothing else I know, its a person with sseveral thousands sent, always proving me right after registering.
I like to put effort in my cards, choose stamps, pictures and a personal text. I receive such cards also. Beautiful cards and I noticed the correlation, that these members never have sent many cards.
So why not make it possible to choose quality over quantity?
That might be possible by adding a slidebar or sth like that, where you can pick that your adress will only be given to people with for example minimum 20 and maximum 500 cards sent. Same rule applying for you then - you will only get adresses from ppl with 20 to 500 cards sent.
There are users who try very hard, and there are users who, for whatever reason, don’t try as hard as you would like.
But that has nothing to do with the number of sent and received cards.
I understand your concern - but any button may lead to sorting out and kind of discriminating those on one or the other end. I saw complaints about drawing a lot of newbies „as you can never know if they know what to do and register your card“ etc - so newbies would be sorted out and potentially get less postcards. And the oldies would be sorted out for the reason you mentioned.
Yes, there are some newbies that don‘t get it right. But a lot more do get it right. And there are some oldies that don‘t seem to put much effort in their writing, but others do.
Any sorting out would lead to an imbalance of the system. There was another topic recently suggesting it would be good to cancel an ID when you draw a profile you don‘t like. This is much the same, only you do not cancel afterwards but exclude right from the beginning.
me! i love sending cards to people who just started. i always put a little bit more effort in the text and the decorations. i hope that my card will be the reason they keep postcrossing. and they’re almost never picky so i just pick my nicest card.
ontopic: i don’t like all these suggestions about chosing who we are sending and not sending to. there is already alot of discrimination towards some country’s, let’s not start with someone’s amount of sent cards. what’s next, saying you don’t wanna write cards to someone older than 50?
you get a random address, you receive a random card. that’s the magic of postcrossing. not everyone likes long messages or a bunch of stickers. some people just wanna collect cards. and that’s fine too. everyone is different, let’s celebrate that instead of being picky who and where you’re sending cards to.
In a way I agree with you and started a similar thread once. On the other hand, I often register a card with “thank you for the card” when I don’t feel like writing any more than that, because the card and the message upon it, frankly didn’t inspire me to write any more. So it’s not just people with thousands of cards sent, who reply like that.
On another hand, I personally cannot abide cards with just “happy postcrossing” written on them, BUT as time’s gone by, I’ve gradually appreciated that a lot of these millions of cards flying round the world, are written/sent by people with next to NO English. And I’ve softened my stance.
Anyway, what you suggest seems fair enough, but for logistical reasons it is never going to happen. I predict that if you stick at this postcrossing lark, you’ll get used to it.
Now now, this is a touchy topic. I can agree that it’s a disappointing feeling to get a card or a hurray message with a generic message, but you can’t just blame those who have sent thousands of cards. For example, I got a card last week from a postcrosser who had only sent 200 cards and the card basically read “Hi, I am X live in Y, our town is known for Z”. And generic hurray messages from those who haven’t sent thousands of cards. So this goes actually both ways. And most importantly, we can’t know the reason behind generic messages. Maybe the sender/recipient doesn’t know foreign languages very well? Maybe they prefer short messages? Maybe they have problems with writing?
So you can’t just tell everything about a postcrosser by looking their sent stats. I have been a postcrosser for over seven years with 1,237 official postcrossing cards sent. Add my forum swaps and the number might be ~ 1,400 cards. You would probably exclude me as a sender by your logic, right? But if we do the math and break down my stats, my average sent cards becomes 17 cards per month, meaning that on average I write a card every other day. Some other postcrosser may have sent only 300 cards, but in course of a year or 2,000 in a course of 15 years. I mean, people do and enjoy postcrossing in different ways and discrimination and prejudices based on their stats would distort the system even more as it is now.
Also, I don’t think everyone, whose address you get or who you send a card to, is such a lazy postcrosser as you @GermanFrench describe. I understand that it might be frustrating, but such is life in these circles. When you sign up, you accept that you are playing a game where everyone doesn’t think about it in the same way as you do.
This. It’s random. You’re going to get all sorts of people who have signed up for Postcrossing, newbies, long-time members, old, young, people from different cultures. Some people will put in a lot of effort, some not so much. There’s going to be different levels of engagement and investment because postcards means different things to people. I personally find it fascinating how people send postcards to me because seemingly little things like what sort of message they decide to write to me (or even if it’s even a message at all) will reveal quite a bit about the person on the other side.
If you want certain postcards written in certain ways, I would definitely recommend that you check out the Tags forum (like this Creative Writing Tag or Write a Letter Tag or Fully Written Tag). Or you might even start your own tag and attract other Postcrossers who like to put a lot of effort into their postcards.
As for people sending more cards and putting in less effort–I actually haven’t observed this. I get the sense that it’s kind of random and has nothing to do with their statistics. For me, I would say that over the years, I’ve actually been putting more effort into the postcards I send. But this also depends on the profile of the person I get. If it’s someone who just wants to collect tourist cards and hates any sort of decorations or fancy things, the postcard I send to them will be very plain.
For hurray messages, I’m not the sort of person who writes pages and pages for a thank you note unless I have a very good reason to do it. If I can find something to relate to on the postcard I receive, then yes, the hurray message will be longer. But if the postcard message is very short itself (i.e. just a “Happy Postcrossing”) or the message is not very interesting (i.e. they only mention how old they are and how many kids/pets they have), I’m not going to have very much to work with in terms of thank yous and additional chit chat.
I disagree with your thesis, but I understand your frustration about mismatched efforts.
For my part, I will confess that I have my own daring opinion:New postcrossers should not be allowed to use the forum at all until they reach 100 postcards sent & 100 postcards received.
I know it is a mean thought, but I do find myself thinking it sometimes because often the new users just haven’t had enough skin in the game to fully understand the ebbs and flows. You never really know what anyone else is going through, and I certainly have varying degrees of effort that I put into my postcards at different times of year. Sometimes things are going extremely poorly in my life and I take a break altogether, other times I lean on this hobby as a coping mechanism to help me get through the day, and other times I have extra money and time to do a really outstanding job and spread great cheer. There are just so many variables in everyone’s life, ya know.
But nonetheless, I appreciate your willingness to put your thoughts out here in a friendly way.
FWIW, I completely disagree. New people can get a LOT of help here, and if you shut them out you are sending a very strange message = this is a clique, don’t even think of joining it.
Yes, you are 100% correct to disagree with my mean opinion. I know, intellectually, that I would not actually support banning the newbies, but moreso was offering an similiarly offensive thought to the original post in a sign of solidarity, like understanding that I see his logic, even if I don’t agree… Afterall, he is under 100 sent/received – but here I am enjoying this thoughtful dialogue on his post.
But also I still think the forum as a whole has a lot of unwelcoming cliques, so, that problem persists nevertheless.
I have not encountered any. There may be single posts (and maybe users) that sometimes seem a bit… unwelcoming. But these are exceptions. And even so: someone may be in a bad mood one day and be nice the other day.
Anyways, I am glad I did not have to wait until I have 100 officials to join the forum.
I think the problem is more or less your profile or what you are interested in. It seems that you are not really interested in the people or where they live, so it might be difficult to connect with you. You are more interested in news and politics and many postcrossers do not really want to discuss that.
And your suggestion to implement a button that excludes some postcrosses is nothing but discriminating!
I have sent nearly 6000 cards. I didn’t join postcrossing because I collect cards or stamps, but because I adore the idea of connecting with people around the world. I put a real effort in choosing, decorating and writing the perfect card for each address I get. I am honestly a little shocked by this suggestion…
But you know, the amount of postcards sent via PC website doesn’t always show the amount of postcards that someone really sent. I’ve been post-swapping for 5 years before I registered on this website. I have around 250 postcards received and still really enjoye it and like to decorate my postcards and to choose matching stamps. But sometimes I care less when someone didn’t write much about himself/herself - you know, I don’t know what to write or what to choose. So, someone may ask: could we make another button to choose only people who have long presentation? We can always find another thing to “improve” PC, but I think that they will just make it more difficult to manage.
Simply because sometimes quantity equals quality if someone can afford it (time + money + effort). Equally sometimes lack of quantity will equal lack of quality, not everyone cares the same amount.
I’m against picky filters in general because introducing them will quickly lead to discrimination of certain groups, but I’m even more against filters based on such noisy variables. That number really doesn’t tell you a thing.
Anecdotally, one of the best postcards and messages I got came from people with thousands of postcards. Does it prove anything?
No.
Hi Michael, I agree that your thesis it’s daring, especially as you’ve only 44 sent cards… I’m afraid I don’t think that this is enough to come to such a conclusion. I’ve sent 1.797 cards and I put effort in every single one. And I always try to write a nice message when registering - though it may arrive that I don’t have so much time, or that the card doesn’t inspire me to write a long reply.
The prejudice in your thesis really makes me sad.
Of courses I also had frustrating Postcrossing experiences during the last 3,5 years - people who sent no registering message at all although I had chosen such a great card for them; or people who just didn’t log in for months so I guess that my card arrived, but they just didn’t bother to register it… But there are so many great experiences to outweigh the few bad/sad ones! That’s part of the game.
For me, Postcrossing is about hazard, surprise, and patience. It’s so worth sticking to it!
Oh boy–I started July 28th. With the mail being really, really slow I only have 37 sent, 34 recieved (I don’t send to my own Country). I am quick to send a postcard when the system allows me. So with your thought–it will take me over a year to possible reach 100!! Whew–glad that is not a rule!!
Me , I also love to send cards to people who just started . 
because often the new users just haven’t had enough skin in the game to fully understand the ebbs and flows. You never really know what anyone else is going through, and I certainly have varying degrees of effort that I put into my postcards at different times of year. Sometimes things are going extremely poorly in my life and I take a break altogether, other times I lean on this hobby as a coping mechanism to help me get through the day, and other times I have extra money and time to do a really outstanding job and spread great cheer. There are just so many variables in everyone’s life, ya know.
