Looking for information about Japanese forums

Hi, and long time no hear... from the far south, here is a voice in (of) the wilderness. ;-)

Not sure whether "classifieds" is the right place for this topic (tell me, please), but it seems as good a place as any to start.

As my life if getting more and more integrated with the culture i live in and the common language of the people around me (which also means i am increasingly involved in local, regional, and national social and political issues), i quite obviously need more detailed and more sophisticated information than in the past, but my family and friends can't supply much of the information i need and web searches take all too often frustratingly long or yield results that don't satisfy me.

As you all know, finding the right answers is "hit or miss", with the emphasis on "miss", if one doesn't know the right questions to ask - so that's why i am embarking on a mission these days to find Japanese forums where it's OK to ask questions that matter to someone living in Japan and where people help me refine my questions to get the answers i need.

I think it is safe to say that nobody goes to the trouble of setting up a forum that is nothing more than "general purpose", that is to say, all forums are related to something that the members/users have in common, be that their work, their (academic or other) specialization, their political or religious preferences, cultural or social connections, a common language, a shared history in a certain place, hobbies, an illness, an addiction, a dream, or whatever else imaginable. So what might interest me? Why would other people agree to having me join their group? There are many specializations that i have been involved with in some way or other during my life, and there are even more things that i am interested in, and so the only a-priori decisions about what _topic_ would suit me would be that i am not looking for forums that are mainly about fostering hatred, aggression, narrow-mindedness, or other kinds of negativity. So all i am asking you for is this: if there is any Japanese language forum that you are part of yourself or that you have heard of or that you simply speculate might exist, where the quality of the interaction between the participants and of the information circulating is good enough that you would not hesitate to recommend it to me (someone whom one can safely label as not only polite enough to get along with most people in most places most of the time but also as someone who can handle the regular rough-and-tumble stuff of life), then please let me know about it (right here or via private mail, whichever works best for you).

TIA for any advice, feedback, info, etc.! And best regards from Ishigaki Island

H.