I’m fairly new here but the forum is the first place I go to everyday. That said, it confuses me that if I have messages or activity on my cards, I need to go the forum to see those notifications, they don’t show up on the main site. Many other sites with forums have all that integrated on the main page. Additionally the number of new posts will automatically feature as a small number on the forum tab, which lets you know what you’ve been missing. I think something like that would really help remind people to visit the forum.
However, and I say this as someone who has used many different types of forums over the years, I find the forum here extremely confusing and overwhelming. I totally understand why people choose not to use it. It took me 5 months from joining before I felt comfortable enough to start, and again, I’m saying this as a moderator on other forums on the internet.
Things I think that could make the forums more user friendly:
Being able to filter out what kind of posts show up in the forum. For example, chain lotteries and round robins clog up the forum, and if that’s not something you are interested in, it can be a bit overwhelming to have to mentally filter past all those posts. Similarly, if I don’t want to see posts in other languages (or only specific ones) it would nice to have that option as well. Also, why is there a need to show the threads that have been closed? More clutter.
I don’t understand why new threads get folded into existing threads that are THOUSANDS of posts long. Am I expected to read through 5000+ responses to get an idea of what the answer is? I know that similar questions come up all the time, but it may be because users don’t want to have search through thousands of posts to find their answer. One way many forums deal with this is to have “sticky” threads with a lot of that information (different than FAQs, which tend to be more limited), which would be really helpful to new users here.
Note - I have also noticed some discussions where people wonder why old threads are brought up, or ancient posts liked - well guess what, that’s why. If all new questions and thoughts get folded into everything that is even remotely similar, it gets stuck in these never-ending threads. That happened to me and I just ended up deleting my thread (now post) because it got stuck in a place I didn’t want it to be.
Another problem is the ongoing chains and lotteries and RRs - why can’t a new round robin be set up once the old one is finished? Keep the basic information at the start in the first post, but then all the posts for the RR will be for that RR, not the 50 other RRs that came before it. I find those threads so incredibly confusing it really puts me off trying one of those activities. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
So, for example (and just an example, I’m sure there are more efficient ways of naming them), you could have:
-Number by exchange: UNESCO RR#1, UNESCO RR#2; Handmade RR#1, etc.
-Number by year: North America RR 2021, 10x10 RR 2022, Weird RR 2023, etc.
Once the RR has run its course, it is closed, and the new one becomes the one people focus on.
I agree with the fact that topics get folded into the old ones and are then lost in an old, over discussed place makes it more difficult to find answers or to get current information. We used to call posts that came back around from years before “zombie posts”.
Someone earlier mentioned that we can mute forums that aren’t useful to us; THANK YOU to the person who did so!
I find the forum much easier to use now that I know this
Also, I agree with a lot of little quality of life features. It would be nice if the main site suggested the Forums as a place for help more often, I only joined because I like forum spaces.
This you already can do by muting the categories you don’t want to show up for you. You can do that in your preferences->categories-> adding categories to “muted”. Or the easier way is to go to that category and change the bell symbol under the headline to muted (ignore the Finnish texts):
That way you don’t see any posts in this category.
You can also mute a single topic at the end of that topic. (Same bell symbol and all 4 options: watched, tracked, normal or muted).
You can also pick topics that you are interested of and mark them as tracked or even watched (the latter sends a notification of any new post). If you then choose to go to “tracked” topics (using “hamburger menu”, those three horisontal lines) you see only the topics that are interesting to you. Also, if you go to “unread”, it shows new replies to those tracked topics.
I’ve been a postcrosser for a few years but I never participate in the lotteries or the RR. I don’t know really how things work and I’m afraid I will disappoint others or fail. Like the lottery, many say if I win I will have to do a lottery in 2 weeks. I worry I will not be doing this correctly. Recently, I put my name in for a lottery that I don’t have to create my own lottery if I win. Also, the continuing lottery, the one I have to go to post1 but the last post is in the hundreds, I’m confused. Goodness, was that the RR? Sorry, if I’m confusing you as you can see I’m confused. I do direct swaps which I enjoy. I enjoy the forum after discovering it. Thank you all for your support.
I agree re: lotteries, and part of why I don’t participate is feeling pressured to continue them - I honestly don’t have the funds to create one if I win, so I wait for ones that don’t have that as a requirement x.x
You can also get those notifications by e-mail.
If you read the info about this forum, then you would know, as well as you would know, that there are slso threads stick to the top in this forum.
I do get them by email, which I will have to stop - I already have over 100 emails a day, I don’t need more from this site. What I mean is, why not have the visual reminder on the main page, not the forum page? (not for me, I use the forum all the time). That way people who don’t think to use the forum will maybe be more inclined to come visit.
Dear @mooseontheloose I think that is difficult because the forum is not run by Postcrosding themselves and the Postcrossing staff is very small, I think in coding it is mainly Paulo, so it might be too complicated oe even impossible to implement the notification on the main site.
BTW: 100 e-msils a day would drive me nuts.
Maybe you may take a look into the tag section. It is quite an easy way to exchange postcards and you can choose a topic, where you have matching cards in stock.
Generally I have sad thaughts that all the users who are not come to forum haven’t the change to participate in things like meetups, where you can meet other postcard writers.
I only joined postcrossing yesterday. I’m a regular to forums but felt really quite overwhelmed. It seems a bit overcomplicated, and there’s a lot of history here which is both lovely and intimidating.
I think it might help if things were consolidated more.
I went on a topic that was started in 2020. There might be one already (I can’t see it ) but maybe an option to see newest comments first?
I have mine set up to only send me email notifications when someone tags me by name, so I don’t get very many. Otherwise I visit the forum when I have time, usually in the evening when I’m relaxing, after I’ve done my postcard stuff.
Postcrossing is one of the very few “old school” web 2.0 websites from before the proliferation of social media that’s still around. No seriously, it’s like you guys, tapeheads and Arctic sea ice forum. I’m exaggerating a little but not much.
Of course Postcrossing has been updated substantially since it was created but the essence is the same.
This is undoubtedly a good thing and I REALLY appreciate the owners / admins / mods resisting the urge to sell to some hedge fund or turn Postcrossing in to some phone app or “web 3.0” postcardcoin ponzi scheme.
However
The average web user in 2023 is nothing like the average web user was in 2007. People these days have legitimately forgotten - or never learned in the first place - how to use a forum, or even what a forum IS.
My opinion is that there should be a mobile version of the website (NOT an app, but something like m.postcrossing.com) that emphasizes the forum near the top, maybe with a ? next to it that provides a link to a quick primer on what the forum is, how to work it, the history of the forum etc.
Of course, I’m just some dude who likes writing. Someone with a tech background will be able to flesh this out better.
I think this would strike a good balance between the awful exploitation that modern web enforces on mobile websites / apps and the need to emphasize the forum to increase engagement.
Hi Alex!
Yes, it could be very overwhelming. I recently discovered too, and regarding to your comment: In every topic, you’ll see two numbers and the right bottom, something like 1/121. That means that topics had 121 entries and you are seeing the number 1. You can click there and go directly to the entry 110 (it will show 110/121) and then read the recent comments. Is the easiest way I think.
You’re right. I don’t remember anything specific about the Forum itself other than the announcement back in 2020, six years after the formal introduction of the Forum, here.
Perhaps we need more member writers to engage content from the topics published in the Forum. There’s a couple so far, Handmade Postcards and Show Us Your Post Office, which I really enjoyed.
I am very much sure @meiadeleite has been brewing a line up of interesting and amazing blog features!
I work in marketing and building websites, and there are several hypotheses that should be checked. Also, there is something very simple to start with:
Just put an attractive colourful bloque with heading, description and picture to the “Send postcard” and “Travelling postcard” pages. As simple as that.
"Run out of slots? Waiting for the cards to arrive? Join the forum and send unlimited cards that suits your taste"
That is very easy and will definitely increase conversion.
On top of that, on mobile devices there is a bloque about forum. But it’s small and boring. So the first low hanging fruit hypotheses to check would be:
Change the title, several options should be tested, I’ll just leave 2 here:
A) Send more cards!
B) Run out of card limit?
Change the text, also several different, I’d start with
"Use forum to send and receive more cards, choose the groups that you like [add links to the most popular ones]:
Cat cards (link)
Topical cards
A lot of stamps
Get 10 cards at once (link to RR)
Add images
Etc. This also should increase conversion rate.
This bloque can be in the letters, and in many other places. If there was a task to increase the number of postcrossers using the forum, I see it as a very easy one.
Another question is if it is a good idea to do it…
I used to LOVE participating in RR on the old forum. I was able to find the topics and the posts quickly. Once the new forum opened up, I tried the RR a few times, but it got very confusing about which RR group I was responding to, and as you said, by the time I was ready to post my received cards, the post could’ve had 50-100+ new posts by then!
Maybe I’m just not very computer savvy. So I just stick to tags now, as there is no requirement to post about received cards in the post.
) but maybe an option to see newest comments first?
