Hey there Quiltndog, glad to have you join us!
I am sort of biased (I host the thread because I have so much fun) but I think the closest thing we have to what you are looking for are mystery groups, especially the Bonnie one. We have a lot of returning quilters to the project, some new people this year, and what I call the "non-sewing participants" who just enjoy hearing our frustrations and successes. I know we also have a lot of lurkers, our post views are much larger than our participants. Message boards and forums are different/new to a lot of people, and then there are people like my friend Barb (a lurker in the thread) who "just doesn't feel the need to post". Shrug, I do the boards here but I don't do Facebook or Pinterest or a bunch of other things either.
Whether there or in other threads, I'm glad you found us and you took the plunge of the first post -- good for you!!