Hashcard achievement

About

Send a postcard from the hash to another geohasher.

When visiting a hashpoint it may happen that others found that point worth visiting before, even without a hash. Some of them may even have commercialized the view and printed postcards of it. Yes, these very traditional, non electronic, cardboard pieces with a photo on one side and space for some hand written text on the other. You used to send them to your grandparents, didn't you?

To apply for this achievement, you need to ...

• find a postcard of the area of the hashpoint.
• buy that card and send it to another geohasher while still on your expedition.

If you receive a hashcard...

• put the ribbon on the sender's user page.

The achievement is not valid before the recipient confirms arrival of the card.

Finding and sending cards

A typical hashcard

The card must be a variant that is sold or given away in serious quantities to the public. Usually this will mean to haunt the shops around the hash and search for a nice card of the place. Printing one yourself does not count unless you made a full run and put them up for sale at some public vending point before announcement of the coordinates.

Finding a card of the actual hash earns you bonus points but may prove difficult in many areas.

If you can't find a card which shows the hash, or the one there is is just so ugly or overpriced that you don't want to send it, take one of a nearby place. The definition of "nearby" is up to you, but you should try to make it nearest possible. At the edge of a larger city, the city centre isn't nearby. But if your hash falls outside of a small remote village, and the village bakery happens to stock one variant of postcards of exactly that village, it's their chance to sell one. General cards advertising a small region may qualify.

Add a few nice words if you like and find a post box. You need to send it from your expedition, i.e. before you get back, the card must be on it's way. Be sure to put enough stamps on. If you were too stingy and the recipient needs to pay excess postage, no ribbon for you.

Proof

You can't take the achievement for posting the card. It is granted to you by the person who receives it.

Proper proof will be confirmation by the recipient that the card has arrived.

Proper confirmation is to put the ribbon on the sender's user page, preferably without being asked.

To keep the surprise for the recipient, you may omit any mention in the original expedition report and add it later when the card has reached its destination. Further description may be needed to prove that what the card shows is near enough.

Side note: You can earn this achievement without reaching the coordinates, but not without seriously trying to get as near as possible. It's not a geohashing expedition if you stay at home. But if your hashpoint falls in the middle of a lake, and you can't find a boat to take you out to the point, go and buy a card from the souvenir guy at the shore.

Important note: About addresses

You'll need the address of another geohasher for this achievement, and you'll probably need it in advance. There may be various possibilities to obtain them. If you are up for surprise cards, and/or have no idea whom you could send a card, the Hashcard Address Exchange may be the place to visit.

As long as you use a legal source, we don't care whether you copied the address from a list you happened to have, asked for it in the IRC chat, got it by mail, found it in a phone directory or have that visionary scrying abilities to just know it. But always respect anyone's privacy.

The following privacy rules are absolutely non-debatable:

• Never pass on another member's address unless you got explicit clearance.
• Never pester a member who refuses to give his or her address.
• If the member asks you to burn the address after posting the card, do it. The guy who sold you the card will probably also have lighters in stock.
• No reason is ever required to stay anonymous. Feel free to ignore any request.
• If a request is turned down, this must not be taken as sign of distrust or any hint about the others or your own personality. Just pretend you never asked.
• If you want to post a scan of a card to the wiki, make the address and any private content unreadable. Also, don't forget to edit or remove the EXIF data if the address is readable in the EXIF preview image.

For your own security, do not post any address to the wiki. Not even temporarily. There is no such thing as "temporarily" on the wiki.

You can allow others to send you an email via the wiki, which would be the preferred way to obtain addresses.

Multiple achievement

Send as many cards as you like, but take the achievement only once per hashpoint and only once per recipient.

Winners

• relet certifies to have received a card sent by lyx, Mora and Helga @ 2008-12-28_51_7.
• Joanna received a card sent by dawidi @ 2008-12-24_49_12.