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 
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 
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…
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I see where you’re coming from, but I think personally you’re incorrect.
You’ve decided that anyone who doesn’t have a profile filled out is being lazy or careless, even though as mentioned earlier in the thread there are many reasons why someone might not fill out a profile.
It’s absolutely fine to find empty profiles annoying or disappointing, that’s valid. However, it takes all kinds of people to make a world and we can’t control everyone to behave in the ways we consider correct.
Not everyone wants the same things from Postcrossing, and not everyone enjoys the same aspects of Postcrossing. It is what it is.
I’ll also mention again that empty profiles are rare, and they are not breaking any rules.
Quite! And wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same?
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The beauty of life is that personal opinions are neither right or wrong, because they’re personal opinions. Personal thoughts are not facts. Evidence is fact.
People’s actions, or lack of actions, ie, writing a few sentences is just a matter of courtesy. You’re welcome to disagree.
However, if a postcrossers request nudity, or profanity, aren’t the community guidelines expected to be followed?
You know who can best answer that question, mental health care providers. What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly😉
Yes they are, but there’s no demand in the community guidelines that says you need a filled out profile. There is a request to do so.
I could change my profile right now to read “Hello, I live near Melbourne in Australia and collect postcards”. That also wouldn’t give you any information as to what kind of cards I might prefer, but it isn’t empty. Would that also be an issue for you?
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Maybe now please kindly think your own attitude. Show courtesy to the empty profiles 
I think you sound very judgemental. Some are having this as hobby. Some people get enough advice in their school or work, and maybe they are here to relax and be how they want to be, in their own way. If I have no motivation to write a profile, that’s enough reason. I don’t suddenly get motivated by someone telling to use Google translate, to me it’s the opposite. I only write what comes out of me head, because then I “know” what I write. (I have seen a profile where they write they don’t like postcards, which they corrected when I told about it. I have gotten a Hurray that Google translated they really didn’t like my postcard. Translated to English it turned they really liked it. Also, not all languages are there.)
I’m, not sure I understood this.
Are you asking would it be wrong to send nude, even when the receiver liked it?
I’m thinking guidelines are “general information”. But, then, a profile can give more freedom, like to write swear word in my language. I can do it, but I wouldn’t just to anyone. Same with nude cards.
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Hello, i live near West Palm Beach in Florida and collect postcards.
What does that tell you about me? How are the wheels turning in your head? What possibilities you can find?