It would be nice if we could cut and paste an image we are interested in sending into a image search field and search through the recipients received wall to see if they already received one. The algorithm could return the top 5 closest matches, leaving it up to the sender to determine if it’s actually a duplicate.
This would be helpful for profiles with thousands of cards and should be fairly simple to implement. Plenty of open source code for algorithms to do this. Only downside is the potential increase in processing requirements for the site.
This is a great idea!
Even if we could view the Received Wall with the images all open, rather than having to click on each image icon. Perhaps this is a setting on my end? Not sure.
Great idea nonetheless.
It’s an interesting idea, for sure. It may just be me, but I’ll openly admit - I’m not too concerned with sending someone a duplicate card unless it’s a direct swap. I spend a decent amount of time trying to find a card and writing a meaningful message
Instead of clicking the “Received” tab on a person’s profile, select the “Wall” tab. That will display the images of their received cards. It shows 60 at a time, so there may be many pages to search through.
I think the extra structure & processing requirements would likely be significant for Postcrossing, but beyond that is the issue of duplicates.
It’s a small # of profiles that have 1000’s of cards that say “please check through my receiveds to avoid duplicates” and I quite happily ignore that because my time is valuable plus if you’ve already received 1000’s of cards, you can afford to have a few duplicates in your collection.
I’m curious how often do people receive duplicates? I imagine around WPD many are sending/receiving the official WPD card but other than that what’s the chance of receiving a duplicate
This is a useless feature.
For example, I received far more postcards by swaps or by friends than official ones. So, my received wall displays only 15% of my collection.
But to strike a balance, I’ll look though the last year’s cards on someone’s Received Wall. That’s all. After that, well, the front may be a duplicate, but the back is uniquely mine. Hope they like it.
You can refine the search even further down to just a few images if you then select the From Countries drop-down and then just selecting your country (usually at the top of the drop-down).
Then all you see are those postcards the member has received from your country only.
Unfortunately, with online stores plus eBay and Amazon, people buy cards from all over the world these days so this doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to.
a bit offtopic but i feel like it has more so to do with specific wishes. i’ve come across profiles that for example say they collect elephant cards and i’ve seen many of the same elephant cards. but if someone says they like all animals they will receive a wider variation.
i haven’t actually received a lot of duplicates myself (just a few, by coincidence), until i specified on my profile that i love otters and now i’ve received the same otter card twice in 2 weeks. i don’t care though, i think its sweet they picked their otters for me.
It’s a good idea! I usually check only the postcards on the Wall from Canada, as I send a lot of typical Canadian tourist cards. I’m trying to avoid duplicates specifically for this type, but your idea can help checking all types.
I understand that people may have many more postcards than what is on their Postcrossing wall. And although it’s likely a majority of the people that participate in this forum, it’s likely a minority of the Postcrossing community as a whole. Regardless, when narrowing down on which card to send someone, I’d much rather send them one they may not have than one they definitely already have.
One problem in this for me would be that I’d need to scan the card I think to send.
Normally I scan only after I have written it.
Other problem would be too dark scans, scans with something else than the card in the photo, and scans that are not right way rotated - would the search undertand such? Of course the wall owner can make it as accurate as possible.
Also, would members assume others will use this, and not using seen as “bad member”
And of course still anyone can get dublicates if someone send the same card around same time.
But otherwise nice idea. If I had all my cards scanned beforehand, I could use such function sometimes.
