that’s the thing though, isn’t it? i feel like everyone here gets empty hurray messages and rude profiles 34 times a week.
of course i’m disappointed when i get a card without any text but that barely ever happens. i don’t really see the point of constantly complaining about every single little thing all the time. on a hobby we’re suppose to enjoy.
12 Likes
But do they really expect a lot by just listing some kinds of cards they like?
And I literally sent hundreds of copies of cards showing the north side of the Aachen Cathedral at night. A church, old architecture, a city view of my hometown, an UNESCO World Heritage Site and maybe some more categories, so did I just a bare minimum?
9 Likes
Some people might think the senders are lazy if they only send the same cards again and again but I do not get to think of them that way as they can be crazy busy on their life with their job and personal life, for example, so they may not be able to spend much time all in all for Postcrossing. All they can do can be just grab the same nicest cards they can find, as for choosing cards for people. That is what I thought when I saw this Japanese person’s sent wall with the same many beautiful Mount Fuji cards.
7 Likes
This!
Close (just a walk away) to where I live is a castle. I have a great aerial view of it that I have sent a LOT of times if someone has ‘castles’ or ‘local’ or ‘single view’ in their wish list. I’ve also bought postcards of Welsh UNESCO sites in bulk.
I’d hate to think that other Postcrossers thought I was doing the bare minimum, when actually I’m trying to match what I have to what people seem to like.
14 Likes
I took a look at your profile. You are not sending one and the same postcard to all people you got. Even on the last page there’s a great variety of cards.
1 Like
As I said, I sent hundreds of these
2 Likes
Hundreds out of 6000 is still ~2-18%, not 100%
1 Like
Still, would I have done just a minimum, if all of my sent cards were these?
And if one buys a box set of 100 cards, but takes the next one and glues a message, isn’t that just as minimal still than sending same card each time? The wall of sent cards looks different, but there is not more effort, if they don’t think who gets what card.
7 Likes
Well, as a person who cares about receivers, if you at the same time send:
- 6000 the same postcards,
- with the same message Greetings from X or preprinted text: My name is Z. I live in X. Greetings, Z
- with no decoration, no drawing, no personal touch, nothing,
- with one random stamp,
than yeah, if I received it, personally it wouldn’t be my favourite postcard and I wouldn’t have a feeling that you really cared about what you were actually sending. I wouldn’t be very delighted, I would just put such postcard in a box and never think about it again. This is how I would be perceiving it, sorry.
2 Likes
But these points are just presumptions! You do not see, what the sender wrote to other postcrossers or if he decorated the card.
We had this whole discussion already in the old forum, for someone from Brazil sent a card with a house to everybody and the text was printed. Then I got my copy of that card. The house was some kind of villa in European style from the 19th century soewhere in the middle of Brazil, the text was about the house and the town, it was not really personal but at least interesting. The many handwritten text with just listings of the numbers of children, grandchildren and pets aren’t very personal either, are they? So for me the card was fine.
10 Likes
The only assumption here is that if I got myself a postcard exactly like mentioned above, then I would assume that the sender didn’t write longer messages or decorate postcards to others either. You asked me what a bare minimum means to me. What you’re reading above is my definition of a bare minimum. Should I pretend that I love postcards like these? I don’t.
Luckily, postcards like these are very rare. It’s a very, very small percentage (it happened once to me), because, as you kindly observed, usually it’s a bit more. Fun fact about a city. Two stickers. Longer message. A drawing. 6 stamps. Postcards from my favs (even if a back is very simple). Etc.
I think that the healthy rule is: send something you’d like to receive yourself. I hope no one will find it too controversial…
7 Likes
For each their own.
I think the amount of members that send one card all the time or sending a string of the same card, is pretty small.
Just like members that send out things that are not cards, members that send empty hurrays, have empty profiles or whatever. It is a small group.
So there is a saying: verbaas u niet, verwonder u slechts which roughly translates as ‘don’t be surprised, just be amazed’.
We can be surprised about member doing things differently and let the negativity rule us or we can be amazed about how different we are and think: ‘Well, that is an option too, not mine, but still possible.’ And move on.
13 Likes
My opinion here. not exactly the right one, certainly not the better one.
I buy postcards boxes from Amazon, from tourist shops, I print my own (generic, a cat, tree, monument, food, stuff) clicked photos professionally from moo.com, vistaprint & local printers in multiple copies.
I pull addresses about 10 at a time, about every 3-4 months.
If there is a seasonal occasion (Postcard Day, New Year etc), everybody gets the same seasonal card with matching seasonal stamps. Their Birthday month gets birthday card.
I read profiles to get hints. If there is a strong demand ( e.g. I only want this), I do not follow it. They get the random card from pile. If it is written without demanding, i try to match as closely as possible. But occasionally, I get lazy & simply pick 10 cards from pile & just write the addresses on the back.
When I was new, in 2018, I used to source the cards others want. Now I do not. I also used to write a thing or two on the back. Now, it’s just ID, date, location, temperature, & hello.
It’s fine if the receiver judges me. It’s fine too if they don’t register it & throws it away. The fact that it is not going to a repeated communication does it for me that I simply enjoy sending postcard, the stamps, the process.
I myself also have same thing when I get card. Every card gets registered. Every card is welcome.
4 Likes
i find this conversation very depressing.
This is a hobby for me and i get a lot of joy out of it, why whine and think of reasons why i don´t like someone i don´t even know.
21 Likes
I wouldn’t perceive it as laziness if somebody is sending only one kind of card. We don’t know the circumstances of the sender. Maybe they live in a place where they can’t find cards or cards are expensive. It could also be that they needed to order a minimum of 50-100 cards of the same design to get it printed. I know there are plenty of online options to buy cards but depending on where one lives, that might not be an option or it might be expensive. People might also not be aware that there are online sites or might not be familiar with the internet and how to make online purchases.
Another thing I can think of is maybe that one card has a special meaning for the sender. I know somebody on Postcrossing who has sent quite a few cards with the same image. This image was something that their father loved and I think they were trying to do something in their memory. So, it’s not always people trying to be boring or lazy.
15 Likes
Just curious, why did you decide to not write messages anymore? I think that’s a bummer because personally I like to receive cards with a message that’s not just a short hello or “Greetings from”, “Happy Postcrossing”.
16 Likes
I’d question whether it was still a postcard if it doesn’t contain a message. Isn’t that what postcards are for?
Postcard - a card for sending a message by post without an envelope, typically having a photograph or other illustration on one side.
8 Likes
“Happy Postcrossing!” or “Greetings from Finland!” is a message.
Also, this is also been discussed before, but it’s not common everywhere to write postcards.
My friend said to me, previously in Finland (or some time period) the message side had to be (almost) empty to pass as a postcard. Seriously I don’t know if it’s so, because some old postcards have writing everywhere, but also it’s been asked the receiver to pay more, because the text went to address side.
Then some old postcards have almost empty message side, and only senders name on some edge.
So, maybe there is a place where this is still a habit?
Even when I get a short message or no message, I have no way of knowing what they write to others.
2 Likes
I am a bit surprised how easily one can apparently fall into the “lazy, minimum effort” category. 
I send most of my cards with one or two stamps. Most often, there is also no space for more stamps. (The new stamps with QR code are quite big). I also don’t have matching stamps for every topic&,interest. So this is how I send:
How on earth could I fit as many as 6 stamps on a card? Is this what is expected?
I really hope people don’t get upset about it- I know there are stamp collectors on Postcrossing but I already have enough trouble maintaining a stock of different postcards, I really can’t be bothered to put x carefully curated stamps on the card.
Sorry for the rant and please don’t feel attacked @holeanta
10 Likes