Do you sometimes get the impression that some people “don’t get it”? (It = postcrossing.)
For instance, a recent card has what I can only describe as squiggly brown marks on the picture side (although it’s a printed card), and on the message side “Greetings from (country)”. No other words.
Another one had an ID number and nothing else.
Another one was a completely typical/ordinary multiview of his/her home town. When I checked later, I found he/she had sent the same card to everyone.
At such times I get the distinct impression that these people are only in it to rack up numbers sent. It seems that they have no interest in your (carefully written) profile, they’ll just bash out another card. Why? I can almost see them now. Get an address, send same card/write ID number. Get another address, send same card/write ID number… Repeat until have run out of stamps. Sit back and wait for a lot of different cards to arrive. That looks like a win-win for them, and a lose-lose for everyone else in their orbit.
Every time I get such a card I am sure that the sender has not the same concept of Postcrossing as I have.
But this is not a major crime.
So I register the card and go on.
Yeah the zero efforts cards can be frustrating. I totally get it that not everyone has access to real postcards and the best printing facilities but the words you write don’t cost a thing. Makes you wonder how much they enjoy it.
People do postcrossing with different purposes, I guess
And here I thought this topic would be about people who misunderstand the rules and mistakenly send letters or folded cards or tea and coins instead of postcards
Well I have personally sent same postcards to different users. For example I have sent meetup cards. I don’t just take 1 from every meetup. Moreover, I have 535 sent postcards. It is impossible not to send some which are the same. They cannot all be different, although I try to renew my stock whenever I can. I don’t see it a lose-lose situation, since even if they send the same postcard over and over again, unless you are the one to receive them over and over again, it is totally ok.
But concerning the lack of words, I agree with you Archie. They should at least put some effort into writing a few things more than “happy postcrossing” or good luck messages. But still, there’s very little you and I can do about changing that, ao I just keep on to the next card
I think we can be patient with those people, after receiving a few heartfelt and handpicked cards they might ‘get it’ and put in more efford. I haven’t seen people with lots of sent cards that do this, it’s often new members .
really? most of the cards i get like that are from people who’ve sent hundreds or even thousands. most of the time they have a very specific profile with wishes that are hard to fulfill, but they send out the same boring card to everyone. i also see quite a few profiles that only specify what stamps they want. i mean great if you have beautiful stamps but it’s a postcard site?
i do get a bit disappointed when i get a card like that and i get even more disappointed when i have to send a card to someone with a profile like that, as i really enjoy writing a lot and decorating the card, but i have a feeling they won’t really appreciate that. luckily i don’t see them that much.
I agree with @linos203, you never know what are the stranger’s reasons for sending a card for you. I honestly understand if somebody decides to write only “happy postcrossing”. Maybe they didn’t have anything else to say? Maybe our profiles just didn’t match and after long time trying to come up with anything they just did the best they could? They did honour the deal after all; send a card to stranger. Maybe the next profile they got matched better and they sent a card full of text? You have no way to know what they wrote to card for somebody else.
If you are getting lot of simple written cards, maybe try to expand your profile and add more info to help the strangers to come up with something to write? If there isn’t much text in the profile it can be hard to come up with topics to talk about. I have ran bit of experiments on the site for fun, and noticed that the amount of short messages increased if my profile was short and had very little information of myself. People seems to like to write more if they find something they can connect with in the profile. It does takes two to tango, after all.
People seems to have very different reasons for joining Postcrossing, and I do not know if there is any right or true reasons to be with. Some are in for collecting, some wants to have friends and chat, some found old stamps and postcards in their home and just want to use them, some wants to learn English, some are just curious… You will never receive another card from the same stranger, so I never really stay to think if just that stranger send the card differently than I would do. There will be another stranger next day, maybe somebody who is more like me.
I’m not up to 535 cards sent yet, but I don’t think I’ve ever sent the same card twice. IF I have, it was a boring-to-me local postcard, but that’s what they asked for, which is part of my point. I read their profiles and send what they ask for. . .
It’s a win-win for them. Minimum effort > maximum results. To the recipients, it’s a lose-lose. Maximum effort > minimum results.
I actually thought it was a post about “outsiders” (or muggles!) who dont get it - it as sending traditional mail to strangers for no apparent reason!
I get it is frustrating to receive an empty card or a dirty/no effort card. But it is true that language can be a barrier, fear of saying something “stupid” etc
I myself think am a pretty unimaginative writer… I seem to write mostly things like “hello, this is me, i hope you like the card, i wish you a good day…” etc. I always found the space too restricted for actually opening a topic and making something nice out of it. If the profile/commons sparks me, it is easier tho!
But it is true, i try to send cards according to profile, almost never the same (except touristic ones which are very limited where i live!)
Last but not least, the concept of a post card is different for everyone, and some places honestly have 3-4 types of postcards available and people have limited resources or funds to get them online. Europe, USA and many countries have a huge selection… but not everyone is as lucky.
I don’t understand why this should be a problem? If the card is an actual postcard and each recipient is a different person, why would it be a problem to send same postcard? Of course it would be fun to be able to provide profile matched card to each member, but we do talk a lot here about how wish lists are just wishes, not demands, and who knows what is the situation there. Maybe they simply do not have possibilities to get other cards and they try to do their best? Is Postcrossing really a competition about who uses how much effort and who wins and who loses?
I used to get a little disappointed when people just wrote “happy postcrossing” or similar things, but now I try to understand or at least give them the benefit of doubt. Currently I have a problem with my wrists and really hurt whenever I write - even a few sentences. So last time I sent a few cards I took some time thinking what I could write that would be short but also nice. I ended up with acrostics and a hurting hand. And there are a lot of other possible reasons. In any case, rest assured, you’ll get enough good cards to compensate the less original ones.
I’m not, it was just a debating point. Most cards sent to me contain some interesting text and/or have an interesting picture. I’m sorry if that was not clear.
i am on other two sites working like postcrossing and sometimes i found there are the same people with the same username.
some months ago i received on the same day two times the same postcard from sweden sent by same person who picked up my address on the same day from the other two sites
i didn’t tell him anything about, i simply thanked him for his postcard, as i usually do with everyone, even if i can’t believe he didn’t realize he printed twice the same address.
i wonder which postcard he could choose if he should ever pick up my address on postcrossing too
Like @linos203, @Kompis-Ninna, and @melimar, I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt and imagine that perhaps the sender is not fully confident in their writing abilities, which is understandable. I think it is brave and commendable to participate in Postcrossing in an effort to improve one’s language skills. Or, like @Angelicca said, perhaps the writer has physical obstacles instead of creative ones.
As for sending out the same card to everyone, I would not fault the sender for that, either. I do not expect everyone to have a wide variety of designs, and it’s really none of my business what the person sends to other users, anyway.
This. After registering here, I found that most Postcrossers do have a different expectation from mine. I, for example, am not a card collector as such. I don’t get involved in swaps, tags, RR’s, etc. because while I like receiving nice cards, it’s far more interesting to me to receive them through Postcrossing and find out a little about the sender and why they picked that particular card for me. Others are very much more passionate about the collecting side of things, so they don’t care if it’s an official PC card or if it was traded in for something else.
And even looking at the kinds of cards people wish for, there are so many differences. I remember stumbling over so many profiles of people wishing for trains and I thought “Trains? Really?” but in the end, whatever floats your boat.
So whenever I receive a card like the ones you mentioned, I just assume that it’s just a completely different personality from mine and maybe it wasn’t PC they didn’t get but they didn’t get ME, like I would probably not get them.
However, I’m also guilty of sending some (many) of the same cards because a lot of the cards you find of my hometown are awful multiviews and whenever I come across some nicer ones, I buy several of them, sometimes even in bulk. The other option is to get my own printed but I’m a terrible photographer, so I have to risk copyright infringements and oh, the struggle!
I’d be bored to send the same card repeatedly, though I don’t mind at all if someone send me not an unique postcard (Actually, I’m more worried if someone might put too many effort to please me, like purchasing a special card&stamps according to my “wishes”… I still don’t get it how to correctly mention these optional hints to not be misunderstood.)
On the other hand I’m getting a bit anxious when I see a profile saying that they do their best to fulfill others’ wishes and want me to do the same for them. Maybe it’s addressed to those who don’t care what they send (so that they might reconsider? does it help?), but I start to feel a responsibility instead of default intention to find a matching card.
(Actually, I’m more worried if someone might put too many effort to please me, like purchasing a special card&stamps according to my “wishes”… I still don’t get it how to correctly mention these optional hints to not be misunderstood.)