I'm a minor and have been devving for 3 years now. I've always loved sharing my ideas and code with other people my age and even recently got two of my friends to start programming. I've created several websites using pure PHP and HTML (none of that weebly crap), so I could technically do this. What I was thinking of doing is setting up a website specifically for people under 18 (but not strictly) so we can connect & collaborate on projects without the fear of being ridiculed by more professional adults. It's always good to know you are not the only one your age that does what you like to do. I know that a site like this could have a slight problem with safety (the "minors" part), so we would need to have strict rules regarding sharing of addresses, phone numbers, etc. (I know I'm not stupid enough to do this, but who knows). Also, this wouldn't just be another "Game Maker" community as we would encourage more industry standard tools (I personally code in C++ with SFML as well as DirectX3D) that could land us a job later in life. What are your thoughts on my idea for this website?

@way2lazy2care: Adults are scary authority figures. Non-adults are peers. I would think this obvious.

One only becomes an authority figure through experience - valuable experience that can be passed on. Peers tend to have a lot less to offer...

... and I don't think I'm that scary

You are totally scary, man. Really, really scary.

Agreed -- its certainly useful to have a strong group of peers, but what they tend to have to offer is largely motivational. Imagine a classroom setting -- group work and discussion can be motivating, and you can even learn from your peers when one of them gets a concept better than you, but you need people with more experience and sight of "the big picture" to lead the class.

Form a group of peers here, but don't segregate it from those with more experience. If the "adults" ridicule you, you either need to find better adults, or develop a thicker skin and the ability to extract good information from less-constructive criticism.

Also, part of learning from those with more experience is learning to be a good student -- make genuine effort to learn and to understand, learn to prepare and to plan rather than attacking a problem half-cocked, learn to ask good questions, learn to receive information and to extrapolate what you need from it, and be humble. Remember that people offering you their help have taken time out of their busy day, putting aside their own work and hobbies, to spend a few minutes helping you out. They may not have time to spoon-feed you the exact answer you're looking for, but they will nearly always be able to point you in the right direction or redefine the problem in a more-useful way. Learn to be a good student and show that you are putting in your own effort and you will find people to be more helpful, and more patient with you.

Way2Lazy2Care: you do seem scary .

Hmm. I appreciate the time you guys take out of your day to point me in the right direction.

Maybe it would be better if I changed the goal of this site to help other minors to socialize with each other, tell their stories, and share their projects rather than sharing flawed academic advice. When people ask for help on their projects, we would simply point to forums like GameDev.net so their education isn't flawed and they can get used to possible ridicule.

Also, I think some minors have trouble with sharing their projects on the massive internet, where people have to fight just to get a spot on the Google search, so we could offer a good project hosting system.

And for those people who haven't touched a single line of code, we would have a Getting Started section more suited for our age group. This would probably be seperated into the categories of Art, Sound & Music, Technical, Design, and Business, each containing links and explanations of those links listed from beginner to advanced. I do not underestimate what people my age are capable of, so this wouldn't be a bunch of hold-your-hand-and-wipe-your-rear-for-you tutorials, but they would be approachable.

What do you fellows think?

In some ways, that's a lot of what GameDev tries to be. And I appreciate that it may be an intimidating community for newcomers, but that isn't intentional by any means.

The articles and forum FAQs are still in disarray at this point, but they are meant to cover a lot of the 'getting started' resources you suggest.

This site would probably be even more profile-based, but not to far from GDNet. The main difference is that it would be a lot easier to find people our age (the only way on GDN is to look at the "how to start getting game dev plesse help..." posts) and talk to each other for fun (not to solve problems).