I’m against discrimination, period. Yes, there are things I don’t like (countries where it takes forever to send a postcard to is one example, another are countries with so many Postcrossers that I get a lot of cards from there - and I live in the worst country in that regard ), but excluding Postcrossers based on a broad criterion like country or number of postcards sent is unfair to persons who are not at fault for being in such a group. Personally I don’t see the connection between high number of postcards sent and low effort put into sent cards. Some very detailed messages I got are from Postcrossers with several thousand cards sent, some with just “Happy Postcrossing” are from Postcrossers with just a few cards sent.
I always try to find a suitable card based on the profile, and I try to write an interesting and somewhat personalized message. I know I’m not always successful. Some ask for postcards I don’t have, and in the current second COVID-19 lockdown I can’t just go downtown and buy one in a postcard shop. Some profiles inspire me to very detailed messages, others do’t inspire me at all, or they ask for information I refuse to write for privacy reasons (information about me personally like my life, my political thoughts, my work). On the other hand I sometimes get postcards where I think “too much information I really don’t want to get” (once I got a card where a person wrote detailed about that person’s medical problems - that’s ok to tell your physician, but not a stranger in my opinion).
@GJG: I think you missed the irony, or maybe sarcasm, in @lovely-weirdo’s posting.
Well yes, that is a daring thesis. In general and in particular as you have been participating in Postcrossing for only half a year and only have sent 44 cards and received 36. In my opinion that is not enough to presume to word such a thesis. And to demand changes in the system which will discriminate against a lot of members and exclude them from getting their due cards.
I would not support this. I have sent over 1,000 official cards and have not seen a correlation between number of sent/received and effort put in. I have sent/received with most of the top senders in Postcrossing and many of them seemed to put the most effort-- choosing a card & stamps specially related to my wishes, writing long texts on the card or hurray message. Some put less and some send the same few cards to everyone or print a generic text on every card, and that’s their choice. I don’t support changes that allow people to specify who they will send/receive with on Postcrossing because that breeds prejudice and is against the ‘random’ aspect which is a core tenet of the project.
I wouldn’t draw conclusions on a sample of 36 received cards out of a “population” of 60 million. For the sample to be representative, it would need to have close to 400 cards, and that’s assuming the selection process is entirely randomized.
If we’re just going by anecdotal evidence (and 36 cards is merely anecdotal), this week one of my sent cards was registered without even a thank you note. The user has received less than 200 cards.
Frustration is part of Postcrossing, like anything else in this world. But you’ll also find lots and lots of joy and satisfaction. I hope you receive many more beautiful cards and thoughtful Hurray emails, and that this will be a wonderful experience for you
It depends on the postcrosser. Some people are shy, some are not good at English, some people just send for the sake of sending to increase their number of postcards.
I always buy official postcards from India Post and write a lot. This way I feel like, I am connecting with the receiver personally and I always use nice commemorative stamps, because I am representing my country. It’s my duty to tell about my country, culture, tradition, geography to others through cards and stamps. Who knows, after seeing that they might visit my country and maybe visit me too :-).
i think that’s the same for me. when i just started i didn’t have any cards or decorations at all. and i wasn’t sure what to write about to all those random people. now i just write what comes to mind, i almost never have a problem with getting my card fully written.
and even when my cards are fully written they are sometimes just (to me) quite generic messages about where i live. i understand most people don’t have a long hurray message to answer to that.
i write sometimes just ‘thank you for your card’ and sometimes my hurray message is quite long because someone wrote about something i really enjoy. it goes both ways. and sometimes people just aren’t very talkative at all. but they still put their time and effort into sending me a card, so why would i complain about that?
i do fully understand that when you have just received 40 cards the less exciting cards and messages stand more out. but i’ve been here a few years now and i click the boring hurray messages away and next day i get a very long and exciting hurray message, and i just focus on those. same for cards i receive.
I have noticed a lot of suggestions on this front lately, and I guess mostly from newbies (?) and I find it really odd, I think that the Postcrossing mechanism is nothing but perfect (e.g. it does not depend on the algorithm that so many German people are involved in Postcrossing or that Russian post services are not exactly quick and reliable).
While I can understand - to some extent - suggestions based on location, this one based on numbers seems really arbitrary.
Admittedly, I have been quite disappointed lately and thinking of taking a break from receiving, because I feel that all I get is generic cards with generic messages (I appreciate that this can be subjective) and I don’t feel any “connection” with most of the cards I received in the last month. Perhaps I just need some distance to then come back with renewed enthusiasm.
I don’t recall noticing a connection between the generic-ness and the number of sent cards.
A few days ago I even sent a brief “thanks for the card” hurray message. I never, ever do that, I always try to say something more, but I was irritated that I had received a printed out message, without even my name on it which made me think they send the same message to everybody… (and yes it was a member with thousands of cards but I had no expectations either way). I still feel guilty about sending just that
My own profile couldn’t be any clearer about me being interested in other people and cultures and a lot of other things, and yet I get a lot of “hi am X and I live in Y, take care” messages. Okay that is about someone and where they live, but I could read that on their profile…
But I know that people are different and they might think that that is enough, or their English is not so good (in which case I appreciate any effort!) and I recognise that right now my expectations are a bit high, so I prefer to take a break and focus on penpals and similar things until I can appreciate small things again.
I also get some of such generic cards and reply to them with just a thank you, but most of the cards I get, say a bit more and then my reply is also longer. And I always try to find a common point in the profile, when I write a postcard, although I am one of the bad guys with some thousand cards sent.
Yeah I don’t want to appear exclusive and make it look like postcrossers with older profiles are a clique (thank you @sailingby for teaching me a new word ), but how can we help beginners understand that postcrossing is a simple project which requires patience (especially now with COVID) and some kind of understanding (not every card is gonna meet your expectations)?
Maybe with the simple knowledge that the members of Postcrossing are a cross section of the world population? There are people of all ages, sexes, genders, sexual orientations, religions, beliefs, philosophies, political orientations and whatnot. And what clashes in real life also clashes in Postcrossing. That’s normal and that’s good. No one is equal. But some are alike. And this is what needs to be found.
Personally, I do Postcrossing, because I hope to receive cards according to my liking, with - hopefully - lovely stamps!
After 15+ years, I still agonize over every card I send, but sometimes I just don’t manage to fulfill the recipients wishes, so I have to send something else.
So if a registration message is short, I always think I have sent something “not so good”, even though all my cards come with special stamps and special postmarks.
On the other hand, I always try to write a few sentences, when registering. But some cards are just so disappointing to me that it won’t be more than a “thank you”. But I say thanks for every single card I get.
Not even thanking someone for the card is totally bad manners in my mind.
In my mind no-one should be excluded from sending/receiving, because then some people would never receive anything!
A complete stranger took the time to send you a postcard. Even if it is blank with no message at all written on the back, there is a message there. Look harder. You are missing something.
I have had a variety of jobs in my life. One was driving a taxi cab in a major east coast city in the U.S.A. It was one of the most fascinating jobs I ever had because the entire spectrum of humanity passed through the back of that cab. I took a couple to their wedding. I took people to funerals. I picked people up who were going out on a date, and picked people up who were at the end of their date. I took people to work, and picked them up after a long day at work. I picked up people who were dying to talk to me, and others who had nothing to say. They dealt drugs in the back of that cab, and did drugs, and were drunk or ecstatic or morose, or half-dead with worry on the way to the hospital. Nobody ever had a baby in the back of my cab, but I am ok with that, because nobody ever died in the back of my cab either. Embrace those random encounters with humanity. They teach you about both those you encounter and about yourself.
All of those people in my cab are like all of you postcrossers. Having bad days and good days, exhausted or energized, just back from chemo and not sure they will make it, just back from their honeymoon and completely in love with everyone and everything, excited, depressed, exuberant or lonely. But regardless, they all still get in the cab and keep going. They all still send the postcard.
I just registered a lovely postcard with a message that I found chatty and meaningful and I really felt this person was sharing a bit of his daily life (nothing majorly deep or strange, but just a snippet of life). I sent a long, chatty registration message. The sender has more than 7000 cards sent, so there you go…
), but excluding Postcrossers based on a broad criterion like country or number of postcards sent is unfair to persons who are not at fault for being in such a group. Personally I don’t see the connection between high number of postcards sent and low effort put into sent cards. Some very detailed messages I got are from Postcrossers with several thousand cards sent, some with just “Happy Postcrossing” are from Postcrossers with just a few cards sent.
), but how can we help beginners understand that postcrossing is a simple project which requires patience (especially now with COVID) and some kind of understanding (not every card is gonna meet your expectations)?
