I can see how you’d be at a loss as to what to write about. Would what you’re writing about seem frivolous after such an intensely personal request.
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Same
Maybe I should start reading profiles!
Would hate to miss that one. That person is in another space.
I did get someone who wrote they were sensitive and not to write anything that would upset them.
Thought a flower postcard was safe enough.
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I just dug around on my wall and found it - they no longer have that on their profile, just a more typical profile text. They still link to their blog about the project, but it was not updated in 10 years, so they didn’t keep it up for very long.
That’s a very vague instruction!
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@Cassisia You and I have been in at least 1 RR for a solid year now! I ALWAYS look forward to your cards and I have fun looking for the next Elephant to send to you. 
Even though we both have lots of opposite likes/dislikes, I always am happy to send/receive with you. 
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That is a very intrusive demand! 
I’m asking me if people don’t think about how their demands could affect or disturb others at all… What if someone just has lost a loved one due to cancer, just wanted to do some Postcrossing to lighten up the mood and think of other things, and then gets such a profile, getting forced to think about “the experiences” again… 
Postcrossing isn’t about filling up special collections, doing research for writing projects or getting 100 answers to a question. Please don’t get me wrong, a nice demand, a writing prompt or an invitation to share something related to a thing I shared in my profile is always ok! 
But asking people to talk about deadly illnesses crosses a line in my opinion.
I’m sure many of you remember getting a postcard before you joined Postcrossing. Didn’t it feel special? Having this warm, good feeling that someone cared enough for you to choose, write and send a card? 
Postcrossing about giving strangers something nice for their mailbox, and then finding something nice in the own mailbox. Of course you kind of agree to a deal when you pull an address - you have to send a card to get one later.
But isn’t it more like giving and getting presents? Mostly your presents appreciated finely and you get a smile and thank you. Sometimes you fail, perhaps because it was hard to find something, or because you didn’t put enough thought or time on it… Putting too much expectations may cause deception, on both sides. But sometimes you just hit it with your choice and make someone’s day. 
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Thank you so much @Pixiedustlady! Same for me. I also love the exchange with members I meet more often in Round Robins. If I see a card with people ice-skating, I think of you and buy it.
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Yep! I’m lucky that my difficulty with it was only that it didn’t apply to me!
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Postcards mean different things to different people, and I think it would be a mistake to believe that there is only “one true way” of choosing, writing, and sending a postcard. Why someone writes (or doesn’t write) on the postcard is dependent on a lot of reasons that the receiver might not see. A postcard is just one brief glimpse of a stranger that is devoid of all other context–and I find it silly to declare someone boring or careless just because of a square piece of cardstock.
Sure, if you have a preference for wordy postcards, a “one liner” is going to seem disappointing. But I doubt complaining about it will change anyone’s writing habits. Unless you participate in one of the directed swaps or tags, Postcrossing is pretty random and there’s a non-zero chance you will get someone who doesn’t write very much. My suggestion is to take it as it is–you’re going to get a variety of different postcards just as there are so many different people in the world.
Anyways, if you still want to nudge the people who are sending you postcards to write longer messages, it might be worth considering how your profile will come off for other people. A long list of likes and dislikes, no matter how nicely phrased, will give me the impression that the picture on the postcard is the primarily importance to you, even if you only have one line telling people to write something of “substance” whatever that means.
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And out of the 100000s we both send, some members are very rememberable and I always love swapping cards with you!
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My cousin use to send me postcards from wherever she was travelling when I was a kid. I still have them and they are very special to me. My mum even collected some for me that my cousin wrote to work colleagues (they both worked at the same place).
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Where do I sign up to force my senders to do what I want? (that’s a joke, but I might sign up if you send me a link …)
I offer suggestions if people are at a loss for what to write about, and I also tell people they can draw a hippo if they want. I really enjoy the number of people who feel they don’t have any artistic ability who do it! It’s good to try new things. But I’m not mad at people who don’t draw a hippo.
But back to one-liners. I’m most excited by cards that tell me something interesting, and hopefully something that it doesn’t sound like they’ve written 800 times before (I live in the southwestern corner of COUNTRY in a town called TOWN with X population). But who knows, maybe it’s the first time they’ve written that. Or maybe some of the fun cards are actually always exactly the same. 
And anyone out there unsure of your English, go for it! Try a complicated sentence! Use Google Translate, do your best on your own, whatever. You should see me trying to say/write anything in Turkish. 
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Hello Suzanne,
A postcard is a postcard what substancial things do you expect to read in five lines ? Honestly if you want to get to know a person you should look for Pen Friends and Snail Mail.
I for one try to choose asthetically beautiful postcards and use the backside as a place for some beautiful artwork.
What is it that leaves you dissabpointed ? And what do you expect from a good postcard ?
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Some people use the ampersand - & - to also mean etcetera - etc.- which means and so on, and so forth, and the rest …
In Finnish & is called et-merkki = et-symbol, and sometimes also read as “et”. (Therefore, rock & roll has a nick name “rokettirolli” (in addition to more common rokkenroll) 
)
Et cetera is marked &c (I don’t know if it’s used nowadays, can’t remember when I’ve seen it, but in text, letters are normally recommended over symbols.)
Et is also Finnish word for no, said to second person in negative “you don’t/won’t/can’t”. 
(Explanation might be wrong, but if someone asks you if they can do something, and you don’t want it, short, sometimes little rude, but clear answer is et.)
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Love the Finnish rock 'n roll term! 
In French, et means and. As in bacon et oeufs - bacon and eggs.
This, a thousand times over. I also find it very patronising. I don’t always follow prompts because I might already know what I want to say and have no space to waste telling what I had for breakfast or a random secret. If I find something in the profile I relate to, then I’ll respond.
Speaking of long messages, whenever I write postcards when my mum is around, she comments that “back in her day” you’d only write a generic “greetings from [place]”, “wish you were here” and set phrases like that, so she laughs a lot when I cover every corner of the postcard with tiny writing recounting my adventures (e.g. if we’re on holiday).
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Somewhere around I have a postcard reproducing an old U.K. Royal Mail publicity poster advising people that there was a limit on the number of words you could write on a card before the postage was charged at letter rate - only ten or so words I think. This may explain why the traditional postcard message was so short.
My official cards have no stickers, washi tape, return address or artwork on them, just as much writing as I can fit in - my way of participation in this project is to share a small piece of Australia with the world, both through the written word and with the image on the card.
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