There are many things that can define a friendship and even a relationship but for this particular subject, I'd like to focus on these two things.

In the context of friendship, when you trust someone, you would feel OK with talking about sensitive subjects and even share secrets. This is about being able to talk about difficult things and counting on them to always hold your best interest at heart. Not only that, you also count on those you trust not to throw you under the bus. The former you can call sincerity and the latter loyalty. Sincerity is about them being true to themselves and being true to you. Loyalty, well, I don't think I need to explain that.

Now we have confidence which I think takes things further. Something I've experienced at various points and at various places in this fandom is that trust and confidence aren't one and the same. Confidence also includes how effective you believe a person to be, doesn't it? The question is, a friend may be trustworthy because of being sincere and being loyal but are how helpful do you believe them to be? Say, if you're really in a bind, how confident are you that your friend will be effective in helping the problem? Or do you think their efforts may instead fall short? If it's the latter, then you may not have much confidence in this person, do you?

I believe this is something a lot of people who have asked for help and received it can relate to. There are friends you trust for their sincerity and their loyalty but lack confidence in when it comes to being helpful.

When it comes to the fandom, I relate to it in a similar way. I do think that most people are sincere and have good capacity to be loyal friends but I just find myself doubting in people's abilities to crunch tough problems. As bronies, we tend to be a passionate bunch but our passions can make us seem much more capable than we actually are. What ends up emerging from this is disappointment and some people can become quite bitter with it.

You can say what this all comes down to is not to talk bigger than what you can pull. Get to know your limits and make your promises accordingly. You may be finite in your ability but that's OK. Your friends may be finite in their abilities and that's also OK. It's just something you're going to have to accept both in yourself and in your friends.