[hot_topic]

no it isn't. What a blind take. As someone who has ventured down these forums when I was younger. Its a mix of gamers/programmers/online hustlers. Some of it is grey area, some if it is renting out RDP's/VPNS for malicious users acting as middlemen for the criminals.

The mob mentality of rule following software engineers on here who are throwing out the accusation that these are all hardened criminals that want to burn down society here are a testament to the fact that hackernews is a cesspool of careerists. If you haven't ventured down these, I would even argue that you've no idea how the internet actually functions outside of your usual entertainment holes.

[demosthanos]

Even Urban Dictionary, hardly a site dominated by rule-following career software engineers, defines a Com as revolving around crime:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Com

Maybe Urban Dictionary is also populated by people who misunderstand the community, or maybe you weren't as deep as you thought.

[chrisco255]

Anyone can submit entries to Urban Dictionary.

[demosthanos]

That's literally my point—someone submitted that definition, 150+ people agreed with it, and no one submitted an alternate of any sort.

I would tend to expect that if OP is right that there's more nuance to Coms and it's not primarily about crime, there would be at least one alternate definition, because, as you note, anyone can make a definition there, and it's emphatically not a site dominated by the HN bubble.

That there is no alternate says that the crime-centric understanding of Coms is the primary one on at least one other site that doesn't match OP's stereotype.

[chrisco255]

If the word is just a made up newthing, why would there be an alternate definition? You can find 150 people to agree with anything on the internet. It's the most trivial thing in the world to achieve.

[psychoslave]

Probably managing to have this post to be upvoted at least 150 times will be a more compelling argument.

[rsoto2]

Maybe we should investigate government employees for ties to child predator networks whether or not we're just a "cesspool of careerists," bro.

https://www.wired.com/story/764-com-child-predator-network/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/the-dark-nexus-between-h...

[rsoto2]

"some of it is grey area"

and some of it is some real depraved shit: https://www.maargentino.com/the-pillars-of-the-com-network/

[senordevnyc]

You mean outside of the sites where the vast majority of the online traffic and economic activity happen?

Do you really think that anything would meaningfully change in the world if these little niche communities disappeared tomorrow? They’re a rounding error on the internet.

[hot_topic]

You say this as if it’s a good thing, that the internet has been cornered into a few very small but wildly popular corners. You arent wrong. I’m not sure what this has to do with my original point. I did some extremely interesting stuff in these groups.

[senordevnyc]

I’m not praising the status quo, I’m taking issue with your “how the internet actually functions outside the big sites” thing. Of course hardly anyone knows how these tiny weird communities operate: they don’t matter.

[thelittleone]

Please clarify. Do you suggest that because a community is small it doesn't matter?

[tonymet]

accounted for economic activity

[roguecoder]

You say that like "hustling" isn't a crime, like gamergate didn't happen, like "programmers" don't write code to do all sorts of things, legal and illegal.

Some of us are old enough to know that none of this is new.

No one is saying these are "hardened" criminals, but none of them care about the consequences of what they are participating in and that is just as disqualifying for public service.

[impulser_]

If you think these are "forums" then you have no idea what you're talking about.

[hot_topic]

Forum schmorum, you know what I’m talking about. Telegram, WhatsApp. Forum : “place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.”