Reading the room (kuuki wo yomu)
Overview
Reading the room is the ability to sense the mood of a situation, its unspoken rules, and other people's feelings when none of these are put into words, and to act in a way that fits. The Japanese phrase kuuki wo yomu (literally "read the air") corresponds to the English "read the room."
One kind of information people use to read the room is non-verbal information: subtle changes in facial expression, tone of voice, which way someone's body is facing, how long a silence lasts. By weighing these clues together, you guess what's expected of you here, right now.
You can't read the room in text
In text communication like a question box, there's little to go on for reading the room. There's only text. On top of that, it's anonymous. From a question with no name on it, it's hard to tell who the person is, or what expression or mood they had while writing it.
Even so, some people try to read the room without realizing it. "The wording of this question feels angry." "The way this emoji is used seems sarcastic." But the "mood" you read from text may be mixed with your own projection. When you're anxious, a question looks aggressive, and when you're in a good mood, the same question looks friendly.
The courage not to read the room
When you run a question box, it's also important not to read the room too much. "If I answer like this, my followers might not like me." "If I answer this question, it might spoil the mood." Reading the room this much could make your answers bland and boring.
One of the appeals of a question box is that the personality and true feelings of the person answering come through. A question box full of safe answers that just read the room gives people little reason to send questions. Of course, you should avoid saying things that hurt others, but stating your opinion honestly isn't the same as ruining the mood. The ability to read the room, and the ability not to get swept along by it: having both is a strength for anyone answering in a question box.