I'm not too active on technology forums. I think that Hacker News and Stack Exchange are my only places where I am somewhat active.

As a result, it is quite challenging to write up and present a naive idea to find out if it has any meat. In general, expressing an idea without being clear on the technical history or misusing a technical term is an automatic disqualification of the idea independent of the value of the idea.

I am curious. Is there a recommended approach that more successful folks take when you have a potential solution to a well-known problem that the experts believe cannot be solved by a non-expert.

In my case, I've been thinking a lot of about alternatives to using a private key as the basis of identify for decentralized currencies. I have come up with an approach (that is most likely flawed and may not have any meat) for a decentralized identity service that is not based on private keys (in essence: if the private key is lost, a new one can be used in its place).

What would be the recommended approach for finding mentors, presenting the early draft, and ideally, receiving constructive feedback that will help me understand how to place the approach that I came up with within the context of current efforts.