Before submitting your first post or reply to the forum, please quickly look over the following guidelines.
- Courtesy: It is expected that all forum participants will keep the goal of courteous exchange in mind as they post. If personally abusive comments appear, the management will delete the comments and may decide to eject those responsible for them.
- Historical sources: References to source material are extremely helpful to other researchers. Participants are encouraged to note their sources of facts or controversial opinions whenever possible.
- Disagreements: Disagreements are inevitable. Sometimes they cannot be resolved. Participants are asked to avoid endless back-and-forth arguments by formulating their best case, presenting it courteously and with source citations and then moving on.
- Current events: The line between history and current events is a difficult one to draw. Often events in today's news help to reveal yesterday's history. For that reason, current events posts are permitted. However, posters should use reasonable care when dealing with the reputations of living people and should cite widely available and/or authoritative sources for statements that portray living people negatively.
- Fan posts: If you are interested in discussing your "favorite" gangster or in arguing whether one criminal was "tougher" than another, this forum isn't for you. Posts of that kind have no value to serious research and will be deleted from the forum.
- Links: Feel free to add on-topic links to your posts. Please avoid abusing this ability by linking to off-topic web locations, images or videos. Linking to unrelated or dangerous sites will result in the deletion of your post and your ejection as a member of the forum.