Note to players using private servers

[voodoodad]

I've noticed lately a disturbing trend here and elsewhere of players who use private servers logging errors and or complaints about different addons not working correctly or at all in some cases.
Listen,

1. Addons are usually updated for the latest Blizzard patch. Private servers are not.

2. Addons are not generally backwards compatible with previous patches because they are meant to be used on legal servers and use a lot of changes to Blizz's API and whatever else gets changed. Therefore there is NO POINT in registering any complaints you have regarding an addon used on a private server.

I won't comment on the right or wrong of using a private server here. I'll just advise you to either run out-dated addons meant for previous patches, or run completely addon free. Those are your choices. Whether you admit to playing on a private server or not, there is really nothing that the authors or anyone else can or will do for you here.

Edited for clarification

[Vis]

You're not the only one that's noticed this trend :/

From a clarification standpoint, what is WoWI's stance on them? I've searched for instances of "private server" on the forums and mostly come up the help request's from the people using them. Is there a sticky, announcement, or rule posted somewhere about them that I missed? I'd just like to be able to have something to link to the (in my opinion) morons, that are using them and asking for help from those supporting the Live, legal servers.

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by Cairenn 4. Don't break WoW EULA or ToU. If you come here and post that you are selling your WoW account for real world money, offering or asking for power-levelling, in-game items or gold for real life cash, private servers or any other post that breaks WoW EULA or ToU, your post will be deleted and you will (at minimum) warned not to do it again. Repeated offenses will lead to banning from the site.

Discussion of Private Servers, in any manner other than theoretical, is completely against our rules. We are an Official Fan Site. We follow Blizzard's rules, on top of our own rules.

Threads requesting assistance with Private Servers get locked. Repeated postings get you banned.

[Vis]

Thank you Cairenn. I knew I had seen it somewhere, but couldn't for the life of me find it, I should have known to reread the Site Rules

[Cairenn]

No problem at all Vis.

If you guys ever see threads or file comments, etc., asking for support for Private servers, report them so we can get rid of them. Just look for the at the bottom left of any post or comment. Clicking that sends an email to the entire staff.

[Vis]

Can do, I'm guessing putting Private Server in the reason field is enough?

[Cairenn]

Definitely.

[voodoodad]

Cairenn, would you consider making this thread a sticky so that maybe these people will see it a little easier when searching threads?

[Tristanian]

Actually, I'm going to stick this, since it serves as a good reminder to what our stance is, on this particular issue.

[voodoodad]

Thanks, Tristanian. Maybe now we won't have 10 or 20 questions a day from what turns out to be PS users.

[voodoodad]

Since there seems to be a resurgence of questions from players using private servers I thought I would bump this thread to make it a little more noticeable.

To restate what I said a couple of months ago;

No one on this site, or any site worth looking at, will help you if you are using a private server! So don't download any addons that are updated for the current patch and then come here and complain about how they won't work on your private server. They are not INTENDED to work on private servers! If you insist on playing on a private server, and not on a real, honest to god Blizzard server, then you get what you deserve out of the addons and their authors, NADA! I'm sure the admins and moderators on WoWI get tired of closing one thread after another from you private server types.Incredibly you frequently come back and post the same question again in a new thread when you see the old one has been closed. And I'm quite sure that the authors get really frustrated trying to help you out with bug reports, only to find out 20 or 30 posts into a thread that the real reason for the bug was because the op is on a... you guessed it... private server! That's why one of the first questions I usually ask in a thread reporting a bug in any addon that I have any knowledge of is "What server do you play on?" 99% of the time the question is irrellavant, but there have been many times when that question caught the problem before it really got started.

Long story short, if you play a private server, don't post anything here, we don't want to hear it.