Silent majority
Overview
The silent majority refers to the people who don't express their opinions in public but make up the majority of a group. In 1969, US President Richard Nixon used the phrase in a speech.
In the context of social media, it refers to the followers who neither like nor reply and simply browse. It means almost the same as lurker (ROM-sen, short for Read Only Member), but the silent majority is a concept that stresses that this group is the majority.
The silent majority of a question box
Among the followers of a question box, some only read the answers without sending questions. But these people who only read are also readers of the question box, and they are affected by the tone and content of the answers.
The person answering tends to be pulled along by the few voices that send questions. When hostile questions keep coming, you might feel, "My followers are all against me." But the silent majority who only read may see things differently from the people sending hostile questions. This gap in perception is one of the reasons running a question box becomes harder than it needs to be.
Running your question box with the silent majority in mind
Your answers in a question box may seem to be written for one sender, but they are also read by the silent majority. Whether you keep this in mind is one factor that changes the quality of your answers.
An emotional rebuttal to a nasty question can leave the silent majority with the impression that "this person gets angry easily." On the other hand, calm and sincere answers tend to earn the trust of the silent majority. Keeping the voiceless majority in mind is the key to running a question box in a healthy way for a long time.