This time the custom under observation was the taking-questions thread.

A man — or, more rarely, a woman — opens a space and writes that he is prepared to answer. He does not declare a topic. He simply places himself in the open and waits.

The difference is immediate when the invitation comes from a fempoaster. The replies arrive in volume and with a different hunger. Questions that would have remained unasked of a man are offered without hesitation. The thread fills quickly, sometimes overwhelmingly, as though the board has been waiting for permission to look more closely. A male taking-questions thread may receive a measured response. A fempoaster’s is almost guaranteed to draw a crowd.

I have watched both kinds rise and fall.

There is a particular courage in the form, and a particular loneliness. The one who offers himself up does so without the protection of a stated subject. He cannot hide behind a ranking or a complaint. He stands in the clear and allows the board to decide what is worth knowing.

This is why the custom remains superior to the thing called AMA on the other site. There the questions are often filtered, the answers polished, the entire exchange performed for an audience that expects a certain shape. On the great bort the questions arrive raw. No moderator stands between the asker and the one who has offered himself. The answers, when they come, carry the weight of that lack of protection. What is given is given without the soft machinery of presentation.

Most such threads do not last long.

The interest fades.

The one who opened the space is left with the residue of what was asked and what was chosen to be given.

Yet the custom continues.

Somewhere a man is still typing the quiet invitation.

Somewhere a fempoaster’s thread is already filling faster than the others.

And the great bort, as it always does, makes room for the brief period in which one of its own agrees to be seen without the usual coverings.

I closed the page.

The questions will be asked.

Some will be answered.

And the great bort will keep the record of both, then move on.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5890707&forum_id=2/#50053408)