I try to read the thread back in time, but I’m missing something… Why do we need to catch up to even out the number? It’s not our fault when we have more received than sent - if that’s okay for the site to give the address, what is the problem. I also have a lot more received than sent, and I remember also on one date my address was given out more than slots I have available, which really looked odd. But is that just something strange, or it is something to worry about?
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No, it’s definitely nothing to worry about! It’s just an annoyance, nothing more. It can create spikes like @Inez001 showed: you receive lots of cards within a relatively small timeframe, and end up with quite a few more received than sent. Then you send and wait over the course of weeks until enough of your cards are registered so that you are even again with the sent/received, but you won’t receive anything in the meantime since you are not owed any more cards.
And as soon as the counter hits one more sent than received, another heap of cards travelling your way is triggered and the cycle begins anew.
From what I read on the forums it mostly happens to smaller (Postcrossing wise) countries, since their addresses are more often needed to fulfill everybody’s preferences, and thus are given out a lot more times “in advance”. People in those countries seem to experience the “receiving a bunch” - “waiting and receiving nothing for weeks” and then “receiving a bunch again” cycle, while people in countries that are big on Postcrossing seem to have a more regular and well distributed influx of Postcards.
For me that creates a “being behind” and “having to catch up” feeling, since as mentioned usually no more cards to you are triggered until you have one more sent than received (except if there is a real urgent shortage in addresses I guess, like on World Postcard Day for example).
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I agree that it’s nothing to worry about, but as others have said, i do experience pressure to ‘catch up’. Thats my problem rather than Postcrossing’s, however.
I try to manage it by going inactive as soon as l have more sent than received, and going active agsin as soon as I catch up. It helps even out the flow of cards, and I prefer this to a massive bunch at the same time.
My address was still once given out 16 times between a card being registered at lunchtime and me getting home from work to switch to inactive!
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Two of my sent cards got registered on Nov 7, two more registered on the 8. But then my address was given 7 times (that I know of) on Nov 8.
Being in a small country (Postcrossing and geographically), I guess I will always end up with more received than sent, no matter what I do.
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I do think it is a bit extreme sometimes. Me and my mom both have this ‘issue’ and we live in the Netherlands, so not a small postcrossing country at all. I have not been on here for very long, currently at 20 sent (+7 travelling) and 29 received. It is not really the imbalance that I mind, though I would prefer getting one for one sent card. I do mind getting 3/4 cards a day and then nothing for weeks. I wish it was more spread out.
Here are the received cards from my moms profile. On Nov 9, one of her sent cards arrived and her address was given out 17 times.
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I thought I’d escaped this, but then a card I sent that arrived on the 8th October triggered my address being given out eight times (one off screen) and similarly for a card I sent that arrived on the 13th December triggered my address being given out ten times!
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I agree - it’s not the imbalance but the fact that the cards appear in clusters.
I am trying to manage this by setting my account to inactive most of the time, then when I have a card registered that would trigger my address going back into the the pool to receive one, I set my account to active for a short while (minutes or maximum of an hour).
I think that this method is smoothing things out a bit, but I am not doing it consistently enough yet to really see the difference.
I think that the maximum I have received in the past when my received was one card less then sent, was 17 cards!
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It seems to be working for me, at least a little. Let’s see in the long term!
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In the middle of December, when my sent cards were close to exceed the received ones again, I finally decided to go inactive. I had not much time on my hands and really had no energy to deal with another batch of cards at that time. I still kept sending a few cards, and it was very relieving to know that I could send cards without getting swamped by incoming cards at some point.
On 4th of January I went active just for two minutes, in the hopes to receive a few cards without getting overrun. So far I received 9 cards that were sent on that day. That’s a bit more than I was owed, and of course I don’t know if more are on their way, but so far, so good.
Still, I did not like this procedure for one reason: I really did not enjoy having to decide for myself when to trigger the next incoming cards.
Even if I know that one more sent than received triggers a batch, at least it is somewhat of a surprise when this will happen, and that is still fun. I’m too controlling in lots of parts of my life, and I want to keep Postcrossing relaxed and fun. So for me personally, I decided to just stay active again (at least under normal circumstances) 
Once I got “stuck” and I could not send cards for a month since all my travelling cards were going to countries with long travel times. I did not receive cards for a month during that time either, since I -again- had received way too many cards, and due to my slots being occupied I had no chance to catch up. I hope that does not happen again, but I think with every additional slot that we get it will be easier to keep the flow going 
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I’ve realised that it actually discourages me a lot if my received are more than a handful more than the sent (after all sent arrived) just don’t like this feeling of pressure and the knowledge that I will have to catch up for a eventually month long time not getting anything and just trying to even out.
I often do leave Postcrossing then for often a longer while (years) especially when there are some expired then and looong traveling countries.
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I’m surprised at how many of us are trying this method. It’s certainly working for me. When I go active again, I try to make it for a maximum of two minutes. Though on 13 January, I got distracted and stayed active for six minutes, so it’ll be interesting to see if I get many more postcards from that.
I’m feeling much happier at not being deluged with card arrivals, but spreading them out when it suits me.
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Weird I’m having the opposite problem. I haven’t received any at all and I checked my address twice.
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You are relatively new, and December was an especially slow international month. Sounds like a cliche I know, but “any day now” you should see a card or two very soon.
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Wow, 2 minutes. I’d been working on more like 10. I’m inactive at the moment, but will try a much shorter time when the post turns to normal.
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I don’t actually go active or inactive. My account is active all the time right now. Maybe I should try that method though.
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Sorry, I misunderstood.
Hello to all reading here
I’m also a little bit frustrated by the way the algorithm works.
I’m living in that common German country and have the option “repeated countries” disabled and sending to Germany enabled.
Currently my sent and received cards are even. So yes, I’m not in that “great disbalance between sent/received cards people in rare countries may experience” situation, but …
Whenever I have for example 5 cards traveling and then the card with the address drawn last arrives first, I practially know my address will be given out 5 times immediately, because the algorithmn assumes I’ve sent them all (and of course I’ve sent them all) and so I’ll get my cards in bunches, too - before my other sent cards arrive at their destination.
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And yet there’s so many little repercussions hidden within the stats! What if the top two countries didn’t send so many postcards, for example? Would it completely change the way low senders receive their postcards?
Much has been said in the ‘receiving more cards than you send’ thread in General Topics. I am one of those that lament sending one postcard a week, only to get my name sent out to 11-13 people on one day and get a joyous week of 1-3 postcards a day… until that runs out and I wait another 3 months to get the next bunch of postcards.
Sent:
Received:
If the top country senders didn’t send so much, would this change? Should the algorithm change? I know I can’t change it so I have to be happy with how I receive postcards, but a model of ‘send a card, receive A card’ would be so lovely!
I’m not sure if this could ever work literally.
If you send, and it’s registered, your address would be given once. But if then this expires. Your address is given again. After a week you get the second one, but maybe also the expired one. It’s already “send one, get two”.
Good thing is, you can never know if there is a card on it’s way to you no matter how many more you received, some expired can still reach you one day.
My latest pattern is quite surprising. I wonder if my quick bursts of inactive work, but I dont recall going inactive in late December, I was busy so I let it go - as I guess the stats show. But many of my cards were registered and I had a very rare case of having a few more sent than received so I had the “now YOU will get a card” 2-3 times in a week, that is so rare because usually I receive a bunch between registrations of mine.
Very different from
(not sure what’s up with that 20-21 March ahaha but that’s nice to break the monotony of the stats).
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