Postcard

My postcrossing profile change

Postcard

Receiving a warning from the Postcrossing team is an email no one wants to find in their inbox. It was a complete gut punch. My profile, which I believed was a fun summary of my years in the community, had been flagged for not following the guidelines. The email felt accusatory, and my first instinct was to defend myself. I was faced with a choice: argue with the team or fix the problem. I chose the latter.

My Old Profile: A Detailed Wishlist with a Warning

My original profile was built on a simple idea: helping other Postcrossers. After years of sending and receiving cards, I knew that having a wishlist could make it easier for someone to choose a postcard they knew I would love. My profile included a detailed list of my favourite themes, but with a clear disclaimer that it was only a wishlist. Unfortunately, the Postcrossing team saw it differently. They felt my profile, despite the disclaimer, was too prescriptive and could put pressure on senders to find a very specific card. Their warning was clear: the profile needed to be less demanding.

Another issue was a message I had included for scammers. I had written a stern warning to those who use cheap, mass-produced internet cards to fulfill their postcard obligation to receive genuine, unique postcards from other members. While I believed I was helping to protect the community, the team flagged this message as confrontational and against the spirit of Postcrossing.

The New Profile: From “Wishlist” to “Ideas”

Instead of arguing, I reread the Postcrossing guidelines and decided to fully embrace the community’s core principle: any postcard is a good postcard.

I rewrote my profile to remove any sense of a wishlist. I took out specific examples, certain emojis, and reframed my interests in a much more open way. I also removed the warning to scammers. I also made the disclaimer about my interests much more obvious, so no one can miss it.

To ensure my new profile followed the guidelines, I even used an AI to review my new profile against the official Postcrossing guidance. The feedback confirmed that my new profile was fully compliant.

This is still an ongoing matter. The email from the Postcrossing team mentioned they would review my profile again to ensure it remains compliant. I am hopeful this will be the end of the matter and a good example of how sometimes, the best way to move forward is not to argue your point but to simply make a change.

Noway Royal, Taihang Mountains and Central African

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This week’s postcards highlight include a maximum card (exhibition card) from Norway, a few Taihang Mountaints maximum cards and one dinosaur fossile card from Central Africa.

Norway Post has regular exhibition cards published each year. I received this one from a postcrossing user. It was published 20 years ago with the Royal Family there. The exhibition location was in Riccione, Italy.

The Taihang Mountains are a Chinese mountain range in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. I have never been there before. This set of maximum cards was sent by a friend in China.

The last one is a very rare one from Central Africa. The theme is a dinosaur fossil from Nanyang, and it was sent by a friend from China. The postmark was Post Central Africa in Nanyang, China. Presumably, it was in a stamp show in Nanyang. Post Central Africa went there and produced the maximum card.

Which Country has the Slowest Post Delivery?

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This month is my unlucky month of postcrossing, most of my cards were sent to Russia and China, which means they can only arrive after maybe 30 days. I have to wait till next month to get my new send-to addresses.

As a new postcard crosser, I have only sent cards to less then 50 countries. From my stats, I found different countries have extreme different delivery speed, some countries are very fast, some are not. My record shows my slowest list of travel time:

Brazil 36 days
Belarus 36 days
Russia 35 days
Estonia 33 days
China 28 days
Costa Rica 24 days

These countries are active but very slow, this reminds me a funny story. In China there is a post service called post via Surface, once I sent a card to the States using this service, 2 months later I was told the card didn’t arrive. Then I sent a air mail replacement, after 10 days, it arrived. Another 1 month later, the sent-by-surface mail finally arrived.

Different from normal mails, there is no sender’s name and address on the postcard. If it can’t be sent to the right person, it won’t be returned, in this case, it’s a lost card. There are so many lost cards in China but never since I was in Melbourne, but what will happen this month?

Anyway, hope this month pass soon.