I joined postcrossing in march this year and so far I love it! It has given me so much joy during the pandemy. I always said postcards isn’t my thing but boy I was wrong!!
Well. The thing I wanged to discuss was when people registers a card with no message? I always send people a message and thank for the card, whether I like it or not. I feel like I almost put my soul in writing the cards, and then I don’t even get a Thank you back. For me it’s annoying! What do you think about it? Do you always write messages? What is the reason for not doing it? I’m curious.
Sorry if there is a thread for the question. I couldn’t find it.
I always write a thank you message & I hope to receive them, but I also recognize there may be some language barriers or internet access issues or some people just don’t like to do it.
Someone I knew joined Postcrossing recently and they were very surprised people would write thank you messages & they weren’t really interested in interacting with people online - so you just never know.
Like @LC-Canada has said, there are probably a variety of reasons that some people cannot or will not write a thank you message that has nothing to do with you as a person or how much effort you’ve put into the card.
I also seem to recall several threads in the old forums complaining about no thank you messages and apparently some people explained that they would not write a thank you message if they thought the card they received was rubbish or the sender wrote nothing on their card except maybe “Happy Postcrossing!” The rationale was, if the sender didn’t put effort into the postcard, why put effort into the thank you message?
I personally write thank you messages to everyone, even if they haven’t written anything on their card, if their card isn’t to my taste, or even if the message they did write was antagonistic. At the very least, they spent money to send me something.
But that said, no one is obligated to send a thank you note. It’s just the socially acceptable thing to do so and people get mad when others don’t follow social norms. I’m not particularly perturbed if people don’t send me thank you messages, but I will say that saying thank you doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve had to willfully train myself to do it often and copiously so I can do it as automatically as, say, riding a bike.
The first time I got a “Hurray message” with no thank you note I thought there was an error or something like that haha it hadn’t occured to me the idea - and back then I got a bit upset. But now I try to not mind it. I mean, I sent the card, did my best, they received and registered it. Both parties did their jobs. And there could be a lot of reasons to do so - we never know. So let’s just move on. And in my experience, it doesn’t happen so often. I think with me it’s only two times so far. Better luck next time!
I always write a thank you message while registering a postcard. It happened to me few times before when my cards arrived but no thank you message, but it is quite rare for sure. I used to think that writing ‘thank you’ just costs you several seconds, but maybe I didn’t send a right card to the stranger, so they don’t want to write anything to me, or maybe some other reasons I would not know forever.
I used to send a pink card to the people who write directly on her profile No pink, too late when I realized it… I must overlook it and do the wrong choice. It was not registered in the end(probably lost on its way… fortunately😂).
I always write something, even if it is just “Thank you for the card.”, but not everyone does. Who knows why people don’t write anything. Could be tons of different reasons. It’s always nice to receive something, but I don’t let it bother me when it is empty.
I joined PX during August of this year and was able to send cards only from October, so far only 3 of my cards have reached the destination.
For me, when they registered the card, the 2 people were kind to send me a thank you message and the other just registered the card. But it’s ok, as long as they’ve received the card, it’s good. Some people may like what I’ve sent them and others won’t. So I don’t mind if people don’t send me a thank you message but I ensure I acknowledge the effort put by the people who sent me the cards and write back to them😊
I like to put in a few words about myself and family, local weather etc. What I’d like to know is how do I see the senders profile if no userid on the postcard, just their name. I’ve tried searching by postcardid but it doesn’t show anything, I guess it needs to be registered first. Searching by name/city/country is difficult if not on the card. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Being new to postcrossing I not only thanked people, I answered their thank you notes It took THREE no-replies to make me realise I was doing something nobody expected of me. I still like to be thanked and still write too much in my thank you notes. So many people think the Russians are weirdos anyway .
That’s correct, you need to register the postcard first before you can see who sent it to you. I seem to recall elsewhere in the forum one of the administrators and/or moderators mentioning that they’ve set it up that way because if you see the other person’s profile first before registering, you may get distracted by their profile and forget to register their card. Or if the recipient dislikes the person because of their profile, they could potentially not register the postcard in retaliation.
In any case, if you want to continue the communication with the person who sent you the card, you can always send them another private message in addition to the hurray message.
I always register the cards I’ve received and will write a thank you, regardless of my liking or not the cards. The person sent a card and that alone, for me, deserves a thank you. I’ve let people know who registered a card of mine without any message, that a simple thank you, no matter the language, would have been appreciated, even if only out of common courtesy.
If people can write their profile in English (to comply with the simple requirement of Postcrossing) they can find out how to write thanks, no matter their language.
It’s definitely a bummer if you put in a lot of effort into your postcard, but when it gets registered, there is no ‘thank you’ message. I have had a few instances of this happening to me, and while I do feel a little sad, I move on and get excited from being able to send another postcard instead.
On my end, I will always try to at least write a ‘thank you’, even if the postcard isn’t to my liking or the Postcrosser wrote nothing on the postcard. I think it’s just basic courtesy. I try to comment more when I like the card and/or the stamp, by telling them explicitly that I like it. But to each his/her own, and I guess for every Postcrosser whom we are not as happy with, there are many, many more who make us feel appreciated.
It took THREE no-replies to make me realise I was doing something nobody expected of me. I still like to be thanked and still write too much in my thank you notes. So many people think the Russians are weirdos anyway 
True about the ballet, we are very proud of it here. Not like in Soviet times, perhaps, but still a lot.