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If you're interesting in engaging in dialogue about the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) using the Internet, there are a myriad of forums that have been established for this purpose. Some are almost never used, and some are specialized as to topic, constituency, etc. I will describe here only a few of the major ones. A longer, although not exhaustive, list is available as Quaker E-Mail Lists, Usenet Groups and Web Discussion Forums. All the forums mentioned here (and most of the others) welcome non-Quakers wanting to explore the world of Quakerism.
Even before the Internet as such reached widespread availability, Usenet was established as a mechanism for people to engage in dialogue electronically. This news group system remains active today. There is an official hierarchy of news groups established according to a set of procedures, and then thousands of alternate groups established independently. Friends (Quakers) have long had a group, soc.religion.quaker in the official Usenet hierarchy. This group is quite active, and the topics under discussion range widely. There is a certain tendency for many threads to become lengthy and repetitive debates on economic and political theory, but you can ignore threads on which this happens if that doesn't interest you. The group is an unusual official Usenet group in that it remains unmoderated, which means there is no one "in charge" exercising any control over posting to the group.
There are now numerious Quaker email lists, but the longest running active general list is Quaker-L. After the list became quite disputatious several years ago, the list administrators began moderating the list, which means messages are screened before being posted to make sure they are within list guidelines. The list remains quite active, and covers a broad range of topics related to Quakerism. The moderators intervene if it begins to bog down in ugly disputation. To subscribe, send the message
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