Hello all! So I was wondering if anyone swaps postcards elsewhere besides this forum? I also use instagram and facebook (a little, but I’m not comfortable with the reduction of privacy on there), but was wondering if there are other places to reach out for swaps. I hope this post is allowed!
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There is Swap Bot. I used to swap there, but people there can be a little dramatic, and you need to rate your swap partners, so I found it stressful. It’s mostly OK for postcards, though, which make fairly straightforward swaps.
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I used to swap on Swap Bot, but I do not recommend it (and have quit it myself). The site is not secure, there is no control there (admin is rarely around and it is very hard to contact them), and it seems like they keep your personal information (aka. address, name, email…) even if you delete your profile and there is no way for you to control it. Plus there is lot of drama going on there and the rating system is biased (you can basically pay to get your bad rates erased). Some rules there are little strange too.
But if you got a rented post box and are willing to host your swaps yourself (and stay away from their forum), then it is ok place. I enjoyed it for the few months before I started to realize what was going on, and after that I had some fun with analyzing how the community there functioned. The plus side was that it was relatively easy to host swaps and find swap partners.
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Prior to joining Postcrossing, I belonged to several postcard groups on Yahoo. They were okay at the time, but I was done with a few people who tended to be drama queens over time over there. Plus, those groups had few international members. This is the place to swap cards in my opinion.
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Swapbot gets another NO from me. Full of drama, many Karen/control-freak type people. Don’t do it!
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Now I’m curious about swap-bot and what the hell is going on there. 
I joined - but didn’t make any swaps there yet - some communities in Reddit and Goodreads. This is what I can think of when asked that question. 
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Karen/Control-freak type…that says it all.
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I’ve been in swap-bot almost 10 years and still do swaps there.
But, I join mostly group swaps (there are groups that you can join) and always am prepared that I won’t get my part. (That’s part of swapping and happens everywhere.)
If I don’t get my swap, I can rate 1. When a person has lots of ones or threes, it’s not likely they will get to join a swap.
You can also do private swaps, and rate them too.
Rating is:
5 and heart - (the swap is as supposed, and some “extra effort”)
5 - swap is as supposed
3 - something missing
1 - you didn’t get your part of the swap
For me it’s easy to rate.
I’m happy there. I don’t join the forum there.
The thing that you can remove a bad rating is good because someones rate badly as revenge (not yet happened to me), and then it’s nice to have one bad rating removed, once in a year. The money goes to charity for the homeless. I think it was that you can do this in Decembre, for one of your rating. But don’t have to. It’s not like you can remove all your poor ratings and seem perfect.
Good things are, the rating, and that you can comment under the rating. If someone rates you unfairly, you can comment your view point under it.
But it’s changed so much from what it used to be.
I’m not sure if I’d recommend it anymore.
But, just last week I was so happy about a swap there, my partner had made herself bookmarks for me 
and all was based on my profile, so it was extra extra nice.
When I was young there were some Yahoo groups where I swapped, but it was way worse than swap-bot 
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I’m active on Reddit, and there is a thriving community called r/randomactsofcards. It’s what I was using exclusively before I came back to PX!
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I’m on Swapbot (newish, so if any of the aforementioned drama starts up I’ll be like ‘peace out’.) But I also swap postcards on Instagram (#postcrossing and #postcardswap).
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I used to do instagram swaps, but only received about 40-50% of those postcards… so I find the community members here on Postcrossing site have a better “honor code” that other social media groups!
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Wow, that is a very low percentage… I was wondering about making instagram swaps but this is making me think twice now. 
I think you just have to be aware of whos swapping with you. If the account has low followers, no posts, or no posts about sent swaps then it may not be a good idea. There are some ig swappers who are very active, but in return can also be quite picky 
Try to swap on Instergram,there are more rare series and rare countries offer,but I have to say their requests are always hard to achieve
I occasionally send cards on Reddit and exchange there as well but I prefer Postcrossing as folks here are more likely to write you and it feels more personal. Their userbase is also mostly from the US and other first-world countries, you don’t always fit in places like that if you are from elsewhere.
Are you familiar with Groups.io?
I am a member of a few friendship book and slam swapping groups (pen pal related). I think there might be a few postcard groups, however, I don’t belong to those groups.
Good luck! 
I do swaps on the postcrossing group on Facebook. I feel like it used to be much more active years ago but it still gets enough engagement I’ve done a few great swaps on it recently.
I am also a member of Postcard United and I’m also using an app called Postfun. I started all of these about the same time as I started Postcrossing (very recently). I still haven’t received any postcards through Postcard United or the Postfun app yet. And so far I’ve received 3 through Postcrossing.
I want to know how can I swap here. Which part of forum can I post?