Problem with #tag topics caused by war sanctions

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Hi, recently I noticed that there is a growing problem with topics where the activity is based on tagging system. As you know many countries decided to put some sanctions to russia, also in postal delivery area.

I know that there was a huge topic about the idea of blocking all russians postcrossers. I also know the statement of admin. But that’s not the point and I really don’t want to talk about the legitimacy of this no more.

The point is many countries do not send to russia and russia does not send to many countries. And if russian postcrosser tag someone they will probably block the topic for a long time. I see that some interesting topics are dying because of that. What should we do about this problem?

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2

I can’t imagine that’s a big problem.

If the problem is reported by another user, the tag moderators will deal with it as quickly as possible.

So if you see such a blocked tag topic, then you should flag the post in question to inform @JetteLise and @annebethp about that.

Edit:
I looked to the tag topics and I don’t see any problem.

The tag at the end of the list is from 5 weeks ago.

But I think the tag moderators will have that in mind.

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3

If you notice a blocked tag you can always mention it in this thread
https://community.postcrossing.com/t/promote-your-favourite-tag/22346

Maybe someone from a country which can send post to Russia will then tag the latest user.

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Russia is not sending mail to 93 countries. A year ago it was 153 countries because of the pandemic. :thinking:

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I see. But how do they deal with it? That is the point of my question

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I really didn’t understand you. I sometimes take part in tags and I didn’t notice any problem. Russia does not send mail to 93 countries. And if you look at the mail monitor, you will see a certain number of countries that do not send their mail to other countries, by a number greater than 93. I was surprised by your post, at least this one. I repeat once again that I have not encountered any problems in the tags.

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7

Yup, but a year ago many countries had restrictions because of COVID. Now the problem is different.

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Yes, but the other countries you mention have not so many members here

9

There’s already a system in place that tries to help tags that are ‘forgotten’. The system automatically bumps them, so they are in the top of the list again. Then a user that can send/receive to/from Russia might see it and tag.

Another way of getting attention to these tags is the ‘rescue a sinking tag tag’. Here you first rescue a tag that hasn’t been active for a month and then also send a card in this tag. It’s a fun game to ‘hunt’ for tags that need to be saved.

It is if course up to the users that can send/receive to/from Russia to save these tags, but one of the biggest Postcrossing countries Germany is still able to do this, so there’s a big number of people who can do this.

And as everyone said, you can always contact tag moderators to signal. They can also ‘bump’ the specific tag to get more attention for it.

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I don’t think this is a big problem - at least not as long as Germans :de: can still send to Russia :ru:. There are so many German postcrossers, that sooner or later one of them will unblock any tag that got stuck this way…

In fact, I have occasionally tagged Russian postcrossers myself, even though Poland :poland: doesn’t send to Russia. But that doesn’t mean I can’t - because I can send from Germany :wink:

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I will repeat once again that participating in the tags, I personally did not experience any problems, and I did not meet a case when the tag got up because the last one who noted was a postcrosser from Russia. This can happen when the tag is actually not very advanced, and it doesn’t matter who marked it last and from which country. You just need to participate in tags, and just enjoy it without driving yourself into statistics.

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I know exactly what you mean and commonly see tags that are very active, multiple tags every day, get stuck and suddenly have no activity for days. I’m confused that everyone is saying they don’t know what you’re talking about.
But it is what it is and I don’t see any solution since russia will not be removed from Postcrossing. You can’t ask that they not be allowed to participate in tags. Just like we have to be more patient with slow mail delivery times lately, we will have to be more patient for tags.

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13

I don’t participate in that many tags, so I don’t encounter that issue too much. Sometimes I would like tag someone, but I see they are from an embargoed country (from the USPS standpoint), so I will let others tag them. On occasion, someone will tag me from the Russian Federation, like yesterday.

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14

I tag on a regular base and i often tag russian people or they tag me…i see no issue and i think it’s unfair to talk about removing russian members from postcrossing just because some countries cannot send…here are so many German postcrossers like me that can send to Russia…if you see a nearly dead tag-post than make aware of it and I’m sure someone will help out :blush:
It would be unsocial, sad and unfair to remove our kind russian members! They already have enough sanctions…

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I’ve checked the last 15 tags at the bottom… of 7 a Chinese Postcrosser was the last tagging person and only of 2 someone from Russia.

So where do you have your data from?

Edit: Because I had a few minutes left, I’ve checked the tags from the bottom till Nov 17… only 2 tags are “blocked” by Russian Postcrossers and at about 15 a Chinese Postcrosser was the last tagger…

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16

I’m not participating in tags this month but when I was before I noticed tags getting blocked not from the provenience of the taggers but for the kind of requests, too specialized and difficult to find.
For example the “request an animal” tag. Once it was cows and horses, dogs, cats, birds…or in rare cases “arctic animals” .now people ask for "the pink penguin with yellow dots " (just invented this one!)
Or the requests for specific illustrators may slow/block a tag.

Edit: I need to add that I always noticed the moderators job of asking people to add new wishes or to conform to the tags description. And it usually gets the tags going again.

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I’m one of the Russian users, who “blocked” the tag. It’s science tag, which very frequently gets 20-40 days between tags, and I myself actually saved that one before and couple other tags being stuck (I like sending/receiving to and from China, for example). :thinking: It’s always extremely unpleasant to read any discussions about excluding users from some country “for the greater good”

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18

I don’t see a problem at all. I have some tags I’m participating (at the moment I don’t anymore due to some other reasons) and sometimes the tags have 10 tags per day and sometimes there’s no tag for 5 days. But it’s not because of Russian (or Chinese) postcrossers. For example I try not to tag the same person too often, but when I noticed that a Russian (or Chinese) postcrosser hadn’t been tagged for some days I’d tagged them although I maybe sent already several cards this way.

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