http://www.30-days.net/muslims/muslims-in/mid-near-east/syria-alawites/
Though it's a Christian site dedicated to disseminating information that could help in Christian missionary efforts, this page has attracted Sunnis and Alawites who want to debate on whether Alawism is actually a Muslim denomination.
Two things to note:
(1) One non-Alawite Muslim here claimed that Alawites "were patronized by French colonialists just like the Qadiyanis were patronized by Britsh in India."
(2) All Alawites here claim to be just as Muslim as the guy next door, and deny any and all heresy they are alleged to flirt with. One thing none of them mention is that many of their teachings are secret. Maybe they don't know that. Maybe the majority of them honestly believe that they really are just a moderate sect of Shi'ites.
Probably the most you'll learn online about the heterodoxies of Alawites is at these two Sunni fundamentalist websites, here and here, and this evangelical Christian website.
You should be mindful of 3 things when you study a small, mysterious denomination like Alawite Shi'ism:
(1) Hostile sources could be flat-out lying about the denomination, or sincerely believing and propagating lies about the denomination.
(2) Sources who belong to the minority denomination could be overstating their commonality with the mainstream, and understating their differences with it, for practical and political reasons.
(3) The denomination actually could change over time. This can get really interesting when, as is alleged about Alawites, many of the group's beliefs and practices are secret.
The two biggest Alawite Facebook pages are I'm Alawite, with 1,858 likes, and Muslim-Alawite, with 985 likes. Muslim-Alawite is obviously very pro-Assad; I can't tell with the bigger group I'm Alawite, mostly because there aren't any Assad posters and pretty much all the posts are in Arabic. Below is a picture at I'm Alawite, which I found pretty interesting.
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