I don't think anyone has mentioned this so I'll point it out as well:

There are a LOT of lurkers. At any given time you can wander into a forum and see that there are maybe 2 people logged in viewing, and the rest are lurkers. For whatever reason, they haven't made accounts but are reading the things we talk about. So sometimes when we have a highly viewed thread, it's them.

But I get what you mean. Especially when you post something that you feel really vulnerable posting - I made a post a while ago in the Survivors forum that I was really, honestly, quite paranoid about posting in the first place. It's the most vulnerable I've ever really felt, because I included a pdf with some family history - which I've never posted that much at once before. One person replied, and it's had a lot of views. It makes me feel paranoid, but I remind myself that not everyone is in the right frame of mind to reply to threads, or they're at a loss for words. Sure, there are probably some people who go "pffft not worth replying to", but then, I wouldn't WANT those people to post because it would probably be hurtful to me.

Just keep on posting