Postcrossing Blog

Agree, it is not so nice to see postcards travelling to people who do not check their accounts for over 25 days. I checked, most of my expired cards have gone to people who are no longer active, but do not let PC know this by either putting their accounts on inactive, or giving up their accounts. I hope people will start doing this from now onwards!! Franciscaatje

@EdvinasLTU Please consider what happens with members who live in far-away countries: if their first postcards take more than 14 days to arrive to their destinations, they'd never be selected to receive some back (since they don't have any reason to come back to the website until they receive some postcards).

@Edvina. Most of us live in faraway countries for many other people. The main point here is that people no longer check their accounts although they receive cards. This is annoying, given that you pick cards for them with care. Postage increases here from august with 20 procent, so a card to another european country is 95 eurocent and to worldestinations 1.00 euro. Then it is not polite to not registering the cards reeceived.
Another mistake is that people think if mail travels slowly to one country, it is the same when they sent it. For example,I often receive cards from Russia that travel around 9 days, while my card there travels at least 20 days. Which means that if they get started they receive more cards in the end. (if they keep sending of course)

Is there any way to report inactive accounts? I'm seeing one that the postcard won't be registered nor arrive to its destination...

I have sent a card to my neighbourcountry; normally it takes 10 days to get there. Now I'm waiting for more then 50 days. Also the postcrossingmember saw her account 17 days ago..... very, very annoying. Also I have sent her a friendly e-mail by asking her perhaps I forgot the ID-number, but I didn't received any reply.
Then the question could be: is she visiting another country( ahhhh mayby she is in my country!!), or is she in the hospital, or is her computer broken?
But I agree: it's very simple to change your status.

i have a lot of expired cards and I think what can happen is sometimes cards do get lost and I have also noticed that a lot of my received cards end up torn on the edges sometimes right where the address is, so I think sometimes when a card is traveling through the sorting machines at the post office they can make the address unreadable in some cases, thus making the card impossible to send to the real recipient :( But I think in the grand scheme of things about only 2% of cards traveling over time never get registered for whatever reason.

Also I really really wish I was going on a nice trip somewhere but unfortunately I have not been anywhere nice for a very very long time :(

Thanks for the reminder! :]

I agree that there should be a way for the site to automatically turn "inactive" an account that is not accessed for a while. That doesn't mean a person has to check in to register a card, just to get onto the site. Maybe 30 days is a more reasonable time frame than 14. If the user does go back on and sees that the account is now inactive, it's easy enough to activate it again. Too many people sign up for Postcrossing with great enthusiasm but then drift away and never return. Meanwhile, the rest of us go on sending them cards.

Of course. I do put my account on inactive every year a couple of weeks before I'm going on Holiday. And until I do return back home Again. Because I think it's unfair to those WHO send me Cards if I doesn't registrate them for a week or more after I received the Card. I do have a lot of expired Cards myself. It's a bit sad. Some people seems to Loose the interest for the projekt and doesn't even registrate the Cards they do receive. Some simply forget to registrate Cards and just put them in their Collection. And some do not registrate for other reasons. So sad I think

I think Petrini1 is right. There should be some way of preventing that postcards are sent to people who are in fact inactive, but never bothered to tell the rest of us.
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As for myself, I always try to keep my pattern of sending exactly one card every three days. (I started doing that to keep myself from getting toooo addicted..., and now it's become a way of life in Postcrossing for me and I like to watch what that does to my statistics curve.) When I am away, I would not like to disrupture the pattern. I usually add a little note to my profile, so senders will know there might be a slight delay in my registering their cards. And I hope people won't mind, because I never leave home for more than two weeks. To me, Postcrossing is like slow food - it's not speed but taste that matters.
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I'd like to hear if that would be acceptable to you, if you read such a note in other people's profiles so you'd know your card will be taken care of a little later? Gogge? Franciscaatje? others?
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Thanks for starting this topic about being away. It would be awesome if we could all find a way of solving the problem of hidden inactivity.

Maybe an automated message from the postcrossing system could ask users who were inactive for more than three or four weeks if they still want to participate? The user then can simply log on to show he or she is still there or the account can go inactive.

I think the question is when do you put it inactive. If I leave on July 1st and put it inactive then. Lots of cards will come while I am gone and I will register when I get back, but when I get back and reactivate then I won't get any cards for 10 days to two weeks. I send cards when I am away and I check what was received of my sent cards.
You almost have to set you status as inactive 2 weeks before you go so that no one sends you cards during the two weeks before you go (they would arrive while you were gone). Then mark yourself active just as you leave so cards will start arriving just as you get back.
That is very confusing!

Automated messages go out to people quite often - Mundoo covered the number of letters that go out on a Forum thread. http://forum.postcrossing.com/viewthread.php?tid=77874

Postcrossing does do a lot of contacting to try to solve this.

I agree it would be useful for Postcrossing to automatically ignore accounts that have not been used for some time - i.e. a month or more. I have lost a number of cards sent to people who haven't used their account for some time. Even though the terms of use says not to, because of the cost, I check to see how recently a postcrosser has accessed their account before sending them their card. If it is a long time I email them to ask if they are still in Postcrossing. From Australia it costs $1.70 Aust or 1.25 euro to send a postcard. Ones in envelopes cost $2.60 Aust or 1.92 euro. It's too much money otherwise..........

I have just got two addresses of users who had not been active for 28 and 16 days. Normally I contact these users if they are still active or I wait until activity before sending out cards. Most of my expired cards are from non active users. I agree that users should go inactive automatically after a certain time. I only set my account inactive if I know that I have no access for a certain amount of time.

If I'm gone for just a week or two, I normally do not set my account to inactive, since I will register and start the project up right away when I return. I live in a metropolitan area in the USA so cards tend to arrive quickly. However over the last few years I've spent large chunks out of the county for various time frames. Like LyndaC wrote of, I try to put my status as inactive 2 or more weeks before I go to give in transit cards a chance to arrive and stop ones that would definitely arrive after I leave.

Most of my expired card is Postcrosser not online for a long time!
Like:1 months, 8 months....
And really sad that the card expired:(

When I'm away for just a week or maybe 10 days I dont' set my account on inactive, I register everything as soon as I'm back (even before unpacking). Whem I'm away for 3 or 4 weeks I set my account on inactive 3 weeks before I leave, it's is now since the 12th of May and I leave the 8th of June. When I have a chance of going online a few days before I return home I set my account active again.

It's a nice reminder to people that tend to forget to set their accounts on inactive.

Postcrossing already sets an account as inactive if a member doesn't log in after a certain period of time. Even before that, we stop selecting members to receive postcards according to a number of factors (of which the last login date is only one), and we send them plenty of emails to remind them to come back.

The point is, sometimes interests change, life gets in the way, etc. Nobody can predict these things - we can only do our best with the information we have.

I think it was a great idea to mention this in the monthly stats mail - let's hope more people not only notice it but actually use the option.

@LyndaC: I agree that it's important to set the account to inactive a few weeks before going away, but setting it back to active right before you leave doesn't work in Europe. Travel times are short, and cards from neighbouring countries often only take 2-4 days. It's safer to wait until you return and then live with a few mail-less days or even weeks.

So why don't you use an Internet interpreter?

I have more and more postcards travelling to users, who don´t log in anymore. Its a difference to lost cards. That could happen, no problem. But users, that don´t log in anymore? Another cup of tea. I write to them and ask if the card is really lost. No answer. For me it is an indication that they lost interest in pc. And I don´t talk about countrys where the post-system not really work or they are problems with the internet. I talk about my homecountry Germany, the netherlands etc. I think its really important to talk about a solution to this problem. Because I work hard for the money I use on pc.

If I go away for a week of longer, I set my account inactive a week before or longer. And remain inactive until I get back.

I never leave for more than one week so I don't make my account inactive. I always register when I get home but when I am leaving for a month or so I will make my account inactive.
I also hate it when my cards don't get registered but I dislike it more when you send an e-mail to someone who is active but they won't answer to your mail. It is easy to just answer no I didn't receive your card.

Very good feature! Just a little too late in my case but I didn't miss out on any postcards while relocating :')

Maybe we could have an optional feature in Postcrossing that puts us to "inactive" (and back to "active") at the appropriate times if we enter our holiday plans?
I imagine an option on the site like "will be away from /enter departure date/ to /enter return date/". And Postcrossing would set us inactive automatically a week before we leave and active again a week before we come back. I don't know how difficult this would be to do, I'm just dreaming... ... and as I said, no one would be obliged to enter those dates.
(I am a bit concerned about stating "will be away for so-and-so long" on any site that makes my address available to people I don't know very well... No harm intended, but our area is notorious for burglaries...)

I agree they should invent that "switch-to-inactive" feature! Would make things so more easy and select inactive people out, so cards are not send for nothing...

Think we may have opened a can of worms here, as this is quite an emotive subject.

I have also sent a number of cards to people who have lost interest in Postcrossing for whatever reason and it is frustrating, especially with postage costs rising, but I have also had a number of cards, which have been registered after "expiring". Now I don't know if these cards have taken so long to reach their destination or the Postcrosser simply forgot to register, but in the end I'm just happy that the card has been received.

If we are going to be away from Postcrossing for a period of time, the option is there to make our Accounts "inactive". All we can do is to use this facility and hope that others will do the same.

One option may be to follow-up your card with an email if you are concerned about the length of time it is taking to arrive. If your email is ignored, check the Account details of the person receiving the card and if that person has not logged on for say 1 or 2 months, then there could be some sort of reporting mechanism to the Postcrossing team to alert them of a "possible inactive account" and then let them investigate further?

Sadly, I think we will all continue to send cards to people that lose interest and don't register our cards, but as Ana has stated above, the Team at Postcrossing are trying to identify these individuals and remove their Accounts from the System.

I may have "lost" a number of cards, but I still enjoy Postcrossing and hope those that do receive my cards enjoy them.

Keep smiling everyone ;o)

ps Thanks to Ana for reminding everyone of this option.

I have a card travelling to someone in my own country who's on holidays, according to his profile he's back in 2 weeks... For him this blog is too late!

About missing cards: I accept a loss of 5 - 7 % of my sent cards. Some of my received cards are awesome and could count for two. I give my card the blessing for a good journey and say a little prayer that might help sometimes.

For everyone who has never visited the forum, it's fun to read there about topics related to postcrossing (and there's an off-topic part as well). I selected this one to recommend to you http://forum.postcrossing.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=136

You can browse and read everything, if you wish to participate on the forum you simply sign up.

Wishing everyone happy holidays, merry postcrossing and a good trip homewards.

I don't change my account to inactive when I am away. Instead I have someone check my mail, email me the registration codes so I can't register them as received. That way I have nice stack when returning home, and get to send from my travels.

I think another reason some people may not be able to sign in often is lack of access to a computer and internet. Some people may need to go to an internet cafe, and that may cost them extra money too.