Maybe not just the mod scene but the scene in general? I was 13 years old in 2006 when I joined. I had no idea about the concept of the mod, all I wanted to know from Google was if there were more animals to unlock for Zoo Tycoon 2. Zoo Admin was the first hit and soon after I was enamored with the amount of user-created content.
I joined up, said hi, and looking at the archive, man was I annoying. 
But kids are kids and people were patient with me. I made friends with a few members my age including Penguinman, Animalover44, ShenTirag, and Koala Komander. It actually turned out that one of them lived right around town where I lived.
These guys were all talented and knew how to code, texture, or were just so prolific in other areas that made up for what they lacked. I was never a gifted modder back then but I still released some stuff. You can see what I was up to here: Mods by Catc. Not exactly high art, but I got as far as I did because I had great internet buddies to teach me a bit of what they know.
It didn’t end there, but I won’t write a novel 
I will say this was my favorite iteration of the scene for sure, when both the internet itself and what you could do to impress others in the scene really felt like you were living in the digital wild west.