Postcard to member with empty or very short profile?

Some people take time to get into how Postcrossing works, so send the card & when you get a Hurray message, write them back & suggest the benefits of filling in their profile to them.

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An empty profile is disappointing and I can understand that you don’t feel inspired. :neutral_face:

I try to see them as an opportunity to send and write whatever I’m in the mood - e.g. the last card I ordered, a song text… But sending a card is imperative, as you agreed to to do so when drawing the address.

Sometimes members with empty profiles write very nice hurray messages, sometimes the hurray is empty too… I try not to focus on it and carry on with the next card, because every member is free to do this hobby in their own fashion. :relieved:

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Hey @Tigermouse - I’ve read many of the replies and I have a different take. Normally I start with concern that my card may likely not be registered given a seemingly inactive or disinterested user, so I use it as an opportunity to try and revive them into renewed interest and try to send a card that is unique, and I’ll spend a decent time asking questions or maybe a funny anecdote from my week. I’ve had several users reply upon receipt that it really made them laugh /made their day, which made it easier for me to broach the subject of how their blank profile may come across to others. Honestly, it’s inspired a few people to reengage or perhaps realize that the community truly wants to brighten the days of others by trying to align cards and topics they’re interested in.

In short, use it as an opportunity to be an ambassador and show them what it’s all about :wink:

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I do not understand that an empty profile is such a problem…
In such cases I send a view card of my city and write on the card something about myself and what is to be seen on the card.

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Same with 1 person , , 2 in theire one language , portugese and Spanish ,
When postcrossing ask for the easy way use English ,?

Write the card in English, as it’s the official postcrossing language. I think some users see English as given language on the website and use the “hi” icon as a way to tell people wich other languages they also understand (aside from English).

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I agree , but when the profil is written in Portugese or Spanish , i don’t understand , i’m belgian , speak dutch , in school learning french , and a little German community , , written German i understand ,
English i learning at night school , for most People i think is easier English
But who al i?

You can report them to the postcrossing team so they tell to write it in English or at least have an English translation.

Or, you can mention it in your card, but often the members seem to think it’s only my opinion and don’t care or don’t take it very nice.

Ok i did write on the card i
, That i did’n understand the language , and i send my choice of card , do the same with the profile we’re notimg is written
Greetings Christine

i mostly tend to get a really nice and friendly hurray message when sent to people with a blank profile. so i always pick a random nice card with a random friendly message for them. i like blank profiles a lot more than people with lots of difficult and specific card wishes because the freedom of choice of cards is always for us the sender. i really appreciate it.

just because people filled the profile does not mean you always get a nice hurray messages from them as i have received blank hurrays from them about 10 times.

so please just do not worry much about blank profiles. as you noticed by now i never call them empty profiles. they just prefer their profiles to be blank sometimes. too shy even publicly but not privately, maybe?

also, the admins cannot seem to able to force them to write something on their profile after all, so let us respect their choice of a blank profile. some people obviously find it better not to say anything on the international platform like on postcrossing - there must be many good and positive reasons for that.

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YES‼️ I received an address, way back, and as always i went to read the profile, and there was nothing. Not a single sentence. Not even a picture. Nothing to guide me to develop a conversation. Honestly, it felt as if i was dealing with a mute person. The interesting part was that the member had been on postcrossing for almost ten years. The member had over 10k postcards in both favorite and regular sections of postcards received. I was sorely tempted to buy a sign language/guija postcard.
What to do? Report the member for lack of courtesy? Report the member for not following the profile guidelines? For me, complying with the guidelines of a group i want to join, is a matter of good manners.

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If they have no profile, they probably don’t have any strong preferences or don’t speak English well. Just send a postcard of your choosing.

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Or just don’t want to be bothered :woman_shrugging:t2: After all, there’s Google translate.

I have received many empty profiles, I don’t think it’s against guidelines. (If it were, it could be easy to do it so that you can’t save the profile with empty profile text?)

One long term member changed their profile to empty, to see if they will get different cards.
So it can be an experiment.

Also, as the messages are sometimes published and id’s visible, some may use this way (empty profile) as of protecting their privacy.

I take it like I am the one to start conversation, just like in life, some are more quiet. But also I try to write short and clear. If they don’t understand English, (if their language only lists say Finnish), they will probably publish my card here on the forum or somewhere, so it’s better to keep it unpersonal :smile:

I’ve understood that you can have:
empty profile
profile without wishes
profile with wishes, but then also there must be something about the profile owner

not allowed is:
wishlist, with nothing else

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There’s nothing to report. The guidelines do say “please use your profile” but they do not state you must use your profile.

There are 800,000+ members here, and we don’t all use Postcrossing for the same purposes. For example, some people are here to collect brand new unwritten cards, some people are here to collect stamps (I know, it’s a postcard project, but some people are more into stamps). Some people are here because they enjoy sending postcards, and don’t worry so much about what cards they receive.

Basically, an empty profile can be for a number of reasons from simply not minding what cards they get, to not really knowing what to say or from not being confident in English (I know you mentioned google translate, but if the language of this site was French for eg, I’m not sure I’d trust a translation for my profile, not being able to check the translation for accuracy). Lots of reasons why a profile might be empty.

Having a blank profile isn’t what you would do, but it doesn’t make it wrong to do. The guidelines say you send a card, in the absence of preferences or personal information, that can be any card you like.

I do agree it can be disappointing to get a blank profile, but I would guess most of us like to choose a card we think the recipient will like and without any information we can’t know what they might like, but even a filled out profile can leave us guessing if it doesn’t include much info.

Besides, blank or nearly blank profiles aren’t all that common.

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Google Translate is fine to give you a sense of what someone has said. You can stick in some written text and get back a mediocre translation. However, it is horrible to use to actually write a piece.

In any case, the profile is optional. You can choose to have one or not. So, nobody is breaking the rules.

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I have several cards made from my own photos, so those folks would get one of them with information about the image to fill the message space.

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@Frogglin , copy directly from Community Guidelines. See below comments
I strongly suggest highlighting/making bold the word, and, or phrase ‘please…enter a few sentences’ when next updating the guidelines. It would help to
Dispel any misunderstanding
Redirect the purpose of the site ‘where others can learn more about you’.
I taught my ESOL students to ‘think outside the box’ when learning English. I was the first in my district to use, besides a high end electronic translating/dictionary, my smartphone to help my students grasp concepts that were not easy to translate. Google is not the only available site that can translate.
Courtesy to others should be expected, encouraged regardless of the level of language they possess, when creating a profile, and or, updating a profile.
Lack of motivation is not an acceptable excuse.

Use your profile to write about yourself.Your account’s profile is the place where others can learn more about you, so please enter a few sentences. If you mention which postcards you like in your profile, keep in mind that others are not obliged to send you a postcard that matches your preferences. You can not make demands about what you want or don’t want to receive.

According to the community guidelines is strongly recommended. Google is not the only available translating site. I use Google because is easier and faster to maneuver. And they’re constantly requesting input to see if the translation is accurate.

Just a short while ago I drew a empty profile, when the card got registered it was with an empty hurray message and the picture of the card that I uploaded got deleted. I just shrug, think to myself “what strange people there are” and get on with Postcrossing. 99 cards were to filled profiles of lovely people with overall great hurray messages, they count to me…:sunglasses::love_letter::muscle::hugs::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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