I fear personalised Hurray-messages would even be rarer if you could just take the default instead. Many who now write a short thank you would just not write and stick to this default and even more users might be upset if they only got the default.
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I like the idea of a default message. This is a good suggestion.
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This would be the same thing as no message to me.
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I think that Hurray messages are not the point of PC and are merely a fun add-on for those who want to use them. I always like receiving one and take the time to write them. However, I don’t feel we are entitled to them. It is enough to get an email saying the card has arrived.
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Hmm. That’s a legitimate concern. In my opinion even if slightly more people used the default than are currently sending blanks, it would be worth it, but not if it were several times more or something. . . And you may be right that lots of people would go with the option if it existed. Good point.
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I completely agree. I don’t mind about Hurray messages at all — I figure my ‘thank you’ is the card I receive from somebody else.
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I’m confused. I just checked to see if I had dreamt of it, but the registration box says “please use this space to thank the sender of the postcard”. Can it be any clearer? What more do we need?
I also agree that empty Hurray messages are extremely rare (400+ cards and I can’t remember receiving a single one) and I personally don’t think it’s something to be bothered about. Sure, a long, nice, personal message is better, but there are other things in life to spend time and energy on.
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I don’t like the idea of default thank you message. It will make things worse instead of solve an issue.
Whoever leaves it empty now, will leave it default later.
If you are upset by the empty now, you’ll be upset by the defaults later.
But the defaults will be more than the empties. An empty box is indicating for you to write something. A prefilled box invites you to just submit without thinking. (Especially if you are new)
As a result, the defaults will be more than the emtpies are now.
And if you don’t like getting an emtpy now, imagine how happy you will be to get ten times more of the default.
So I don’t see it as a solution.
Also, I’ve never seen an empty message. Are they really so many, to justify product tech work?
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Please keep in mind that this is a topic with a suggestion and not a discussion topic of empty Hurray messages.
Therefore I moved some posts to Empty Hurray messages
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I would love this. Either typing a message once and saving it or a boilerplate message. I send most of my hurrahs from my phone, and it’s a huge pain to type on my phone.
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Well ideally the message is personalised so a boilerplate is a little bit sad…
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I absolutely adore Hurrays who are written clearly for ME. And I always try to send one, too. Yes, it takes its time, but the purpose is connecting and not sending as many card as possible…
I would assume that the standard message is used, if available, and would not like that.
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I thought “Hurray!” is already the default message to say thank you 
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I would absolutely love to have a customisable default. I start almost every one as a formula anyway (‘Thank you for the … card! I especially loved ….’) so it would be really handy to have the basic outline there for me already!
But I also think a generalised default is a good idea. I agree with others that it would probably mean slightly less people would take the time to personalise each message, but so what? Here in the forums, it is apparent that some people put a lot of emphasis on the Hurray message and feel hurt when others don’t, but a lot of the time the offenders are likely doing so without even realising. Maybe a default message could lessen this issue by helping to place less emphasis on the Hurray in general. Maybe a reduced emphasis on the message would also help some postcards get registered faster (and have less risk of being forgotten), such as when the recipient doesn’t have much time and feels they need to wait until they can write a message. And of course it obviously wouldn’t stop people who want to write a personalised message from doing so.
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It would support lazyness and lead to more impersonal messages, for it is easier to just take the default message instead of writing an individual one, thus contradicting the aim of Postcrossing to connect people.
And if people do not have time to answer, then they need to take time. Sending default hurray messages is as bad as sending empty ones.
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It would support lazyness and lead to more impersonal messages, for it is easier to just take the default message instead of writing an individual one, thus contradicting the aim of Postcrossing to connect people.
The goal of Postcrossing is “to connect people across the world through postcards” so the Hurray message might be a nice bonus connection for some people but it’s not the point.
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The Hurray-message is an important part of the connection, for otherwise the “connection” would be single sided and that is no connection.
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In my understanding, as the sender you experience the connection when you read the profile and write the card, and then of course as the recipient it’s when you receive and read the card. So, I don’t see the Hurray message as strictly necessary to this goal at all (and I don’t see how a default message would be any worse than the common clearly copied-and-pasted hurray messages a lot of people use).
That said, I do still write personalised Hurray messages, and would continue to even if there were a default, as I imagine many people would.
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To me, they would be worse because even if the sender uses their own copied text, I will receive that text only once - whereas I’m afraid I would receive the default text many times.
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A default in English would greatly help those who have limited English language skills or use a different alphabet. Something simple like “thank you for your card” and people could add on more as they wish. This is a good idea
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