I was 14-15 in 2004-2005. My drug of choice was the never-ending 24/7 user-led trivia game (with "name the song/artist" questions on voice chat) in the Trivia Madness!:1 room on Yahoo Chat, and they all thought I was an adult for like a year, until it came up organically. It was funny seeing them all shocked and whatnot, but I can't say there's much to gain from letting people know you're 14 on the internet. They're not going to be all like, "Oh, well, I guess 14-year-olds aren't always total morons, huh?" They're just going to start treating you like you're half a moron.
So I think that if they're doing it right, then ideally we don't notice.
I mean, as a 13 year old I tried to figure out anti-aliasing, but my conclusion was completely different to the reality.
Even as a not-very-educated person, by the time I was a teenager, I learned a lot by reading Slashdot, PCGamer, Tom's Hardware, CNet, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Britannica, Encarta, Wikipedia, and the such. I was also involved in various BBSes, IRC, Usenet, MUDs, etc., and exposed to all the violence, sex, and general depravity that was the 90s-2000s internet. I learned a lot that way... for better or worse, lol. Definitely stumbled upon a few scarring videos on Napster, purposefully mislabeled as popular music videos...
I'd never want to shield a teenager from all that freeform learning. Or from the environments where they could anonymously participate as equals with other adults (or unknown persons). HN counts too... I have no idea whether you're a 30-year-old man, a 90-year-old grandma, or a 4-month-old AI puppy. Sometimes it's nice to not know and to just be able to focus on the topic at hand.
But then again, heh, I didn't exactly grow up to be the most stable or balanced adult... maybe there IS a reason to keep them protected... shrug.
Slack could be an alternative. Not sure if teens are used to that though? Perhaps Matrix could be another alternative, but the UX there can be quite confusing IMHO.
I guess hn is suitable for teenagers as well.
