My friend was just talking about this, that when Finnish had cheaper rate for postcard, you weren’t allowed to write a lot, because then you would be charged for a letter postage!
I have some really old postcards that have writing in both sides, but he says this (to not write too much) was sometimes in the 90’s, and after that it has changed that a letter up to 20 g and a postcard are the same postage.
I don’t mean to go off topic here, but I find this conversation about “&” interesting.
Maybe it is a generational thing? My grandma uses “&” often, but I was never taught to use it in school. We were taught what it meant, but we always just wrote “and.” (Edit to say I am a US-citizen and English is my first language which may be relevant to mention for the conversation).
When I am short on space or am writing quickly, I use “+.” For example, “on Saturday I wrote a few postcards + made curry for dinner.”
As far as I know, all of my US friends use “+” to mean “and.” No one I know (other than my grandma, 76) uses “&” to mean “and.”
Or perhaps it’s a regional thing or just something my friends and I all have in common.
But definitely interesting to see how the symbol has different meanings to different people!
I enjoy the diversity of it.
Some people simply aren’t wordsmiths and I appreciate the act of anyone actually taking the time and money to send me a card.
Of course I enjoy the longer texts but this isn’t penpaling so I take every card at face (and reverse) value 
“&” is pervasive in our culture in writing , but , as mentioned above, the derivation would be the epsilon with a line through it.
“Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway” . It would be strange to write Mickey + Minnie
I’d expect an “=“ , equal sign.
M+M=
Would mean differently with an ampersand sign.
The meaning of your sentence with plus symbol could mean an emphatic tone. As if you were so amazed at your multitasking. Whereas an ampersand would not carry same meaning.
In my experience the &, + and epsilon are all interchangeable to convey “and”, a plus sign is a lot easier to write than an ampersand so I often use it in short quick writings like postcards and notes to myself, whereas if I am typing I will use the ampersand by default .
Somehow it changes when I’m writing something longer like a letter and then I’ll use the epsilon.
In my region, I wasn’t formally taught that using + to signify “and” would be weighted any differently than using &, and that’s not a distinction I’ve ever picked up on or noticed.
In older writing, like in books at my grandparents place or older tomes I’ve acquired, I’ve often seen &c in place of etc
Such an interesting discussion!
well for me it’s more about the message itself. i got some printed messages that felt very impersonal. it didn’t even say my name and it was just something super generic, like it got printed 300 times and stuck on all the cards. but i have the same thing with written messages a lot of times so. if you have something you really wanna say and it’s better for you to type it then please do.
I am from the USA and I use thay exact symbol to mean “and” as well 
Given that you have a reason to do so, a printed message wouldn’t be a problem for most people, as long as it is personal. Most of the time printed messages are generic and it is obvious they typed it once and then printed it in a lot of copies and stick the same to every postcard. That is one of the saddest things in Postcrossing, in my opinion…
Hmm, now I want to write a Haiku for on my new postcards! You know it’s not just the words, it’s the photo on the front and the stamps and the joy of sending some out. Sometimes people just give me the weather report and that really amuses me. Should I be adding weather details?
Btw, I noticed that very often even if there’s a language barrier or someone doesn’t have idea or just simply doesn’t like to write much, many people still put a lot of effort (choosing very carefully a nice postcard or adding some stickers, or something like this). That should be appreciated as well.
If you don’t like it - don’t do it. Don’t do anything against yourself.
I started adding weather details (temperature and weather) simply because someone sent me a postcard with it and I found it nice. It was like imagining the surrounding when they were sending this postcard. I personally appreciate details like that - but it’s me and my explanation why I like it.
Still, it’s up to you, find your own way.
I’m myself always curious what I will receive and I love variety of postcards.
I added some suggestions just simply because some people have no idea what to write etc.
But you should always treat all preferences as suggestions, they are nothing more (in my opinion).
I like the weather details, I just wondered if other people enjoyed the weather too. I LOVE reading the bios and interests when I am sending a new card. I was going to do the weather today but my recipient was interested in mining and I live in a mining area so I talked about that as much as I could in such a small space. I try to pick a card based on their likes and write something I think they will relate to. Peace and Love, Emmskey
I did not know about the round robins. Now I am going to look them up. Thank you for sharing that!
Some people love it, some people hate it, it is discussed here:
One liner cards give impression that sender is possibly bored and just doing mechanical part of writing address/ ID and posting.
I prefer those cards, who give interesting information of card,/event or history related to card. I prefer to explain various cultural backgrounds of photo or historical importance of place and just give brief of myself.
That is why my cards have long text and i try to fit maximum in small space of card.
that’s a very amusing request - the hippo - what a great idea!
And it’s disappointing, isn’t it?
I’ve received almost 100 since joining and most of them have a nice, personal message on the back. I find it unusual that most of yours so far haven’t and I wonder if you’ve just been unlucky so far and I’ve been lucky and somewhere along the line we’ll both even out and have a fair share of each.
I can’t see your profile so I don’t know if you ask for comments specifically? I ask people if they wouldn’t mind telling me about their home, what they had for dinner etc. it may help some people to have a simple prompt?
I think some people are interested in connection. Others are interested in collection. And most of us fall somewhere in between! HTH.
@kanosis
How would you know what would upset them or not? For example- you write that it’s raining today , perhaps they hate rain and find it depressing, so that would upset them? Would just Happy Postcrossing work for them you think?