I am opening this topic to see if it is a good feature to have our profile display whether the member is interested in becoming penpals. Often, we come to the forum to check out the penpal requests. Instead of this, if our profile can display interested in penpal as an additional information (similar to interested in direct swaps), it is helpful.
I think this is a super cool idea! Sometimes you draw a person that you think is interesting and I think if you knew if the person is interested in becoming penpals that would be really nice.
I understand why you might want that feature but Postcrossing’s focus is on postcards & it is not a penpal service eh? They are quite different and the vast majority of people signed up for postcards, not writing letters.
Using that topic in the Forum to find penpals is going to be the best way to do that on an ongoing basis I think. And as someone else already mentioned, you can write your interest in being a penpal on your own profile so others can see it.
Part of me thinks it’s a good idea. It’s true that it’s about postcards but it would be good to signal the interest to do more.
But in practical terms, I don’t think it would work. I think people would get too many requests to be penpals and have to refuse (you can’t have an endless number of penpals, there’s not enough time and money in the world), or they wouldn’t stick to it and just say yes to everything but then stop after one letter or forget to reply etc… So maybe having to take that extra step to look for it on the forum makes more sense.
Just a side of the coin to consider!
I think, if someone would be interested in getting new penpals, it is enough to just add a sentence or two to your profile, I’ve seen that often enough. And if someone’s profile speaks up to you so much that you would like to continue the contact, just ask if they would be interested as well. No harm in that, I don’t think…
That happened to me at least once. This girl got my address for an official card and wrote to me asking if I wanted to be penpals (I don’t ask for it on my profile). We’ve been writing to each other ever since! (More than 3 years already)