That's an incomplete understanding of social norms. > in real life - if you were giving a conference presentation you wouldn't have any expectations of intimac

That's an incomplete understanding of social norms. > in real life - if you were giving a conference presentation you wouldn't have any expectations of intimacy. Of course you would. Every conference I've ever been to had a bunch of social norms attached to it, encoded implicitly or explicitly in the conference materials and attendees' behavior. People were at the conference to socialize on those terms. People who violated those terms would quickly find themselves excluded. Even those who were there to broadcast information as widely as possible still had a lot of expectations attached to how that would happen. At the best-run conferences you never notice any of this happening, because the people running it are good at their job - and the result is a feeling of intimacy that builds trust among the attendees. Online forums carry all the same features.