Hi All,
I’m quite new to the forum, and I see the word ‘official’ is used very often here. Are’t we all official and aren’t we all sending official cards using Postcrossing? What is unofficial then? 
Thank you!
Hi Angelina, welcome to the forum. Official cards are your sent and received cards with the special country code and numerical designation that you register. In the forum, you are able to send and received non-official cards through swaps, round robins, tags, and other means. It is quite fun to supplement your official snail mail with non-official snail mail. Therefore, the usage of the word “official” has nothing to do with the user - it is about the type of mail you are sending/receiving.
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Official cards are those sent through postcrossing.com - where you draw an address randomly.
Unofficial cards are private swaps and all those cards you get / write through forum activities such as RR, Tags, Lotteries etc. Those will not appear on your official profile.
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Thought so!“Official” postcards are those sent through the main Postcrossing site; you draw an address and then send a card to that address. When you receive the card(s), you register them.
Postcards swapped or offered in the Forum are not usually monitored. The head Forum administrator or moderators of tags and RRs may intervene and curtail activities of those members when numerous complaints have been received. Sidebar suggestion: if you plan to do any swapping, you should do it in the Forum - not on the Official side. Hope this helps…
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“Official cards” is not an official term either, it is forum slang. 
But it’s useful to differentiate between the two because if you have trouble with another Postcrossing member over an official card, then the Postcrossing Team will help you. If you get involved in a private swap, they are not obliged to help you.
There is a game called Bingo in this forum: #games-activities:bingo There, only official cards count towards a bingo.
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