Topical forums run by enthusiasts are always good. 4chan is underrated in some ways even; there's a lot of garbage but the best is better than anywhere. I think

Topical forums run by enthusiasts are always good. 4chan is underrated in some ways even; there's a lot of garbage but the best is better than anywhere. I think in general you should avoid sites that have any kind of voting. "Bump order" brings controversial ideas to the top which means they're probably original. IRC channels are still great too, I learned a lot lurking in places like #linux on freenode.