EoFF Forums has always had a rule that no illegal material could be posted on-site. I myself have closed numerous threads offering links to ROMs--even from members I have sent ROMs to or received ROMs from directly. If it's happening in the forums, it's non-grata, but there's never been any argument with peddling technically illegal "abandonware" type content through other means, such as private messaging or AIM.

It would seem to me that the sole exception to EoFF's stance on such matters is the fact that EoFF carries hundreds of advertisements for companies like IGE and mysupersales that sell FFXI gil. Although IGE will protest that what they're doing is not illegal--by Hong Kong law (haha, law in Hong Kong, that's funny)--it is, in principle, illegal as any ingame currency is the intellectual property of Square-Enix. So really, such gil-selling companies are selling something that belongs to someone else, plus such real-currency transactions are against Square-Enix's terms of service.

Basically, the entire premise under which such gil sellers operate is nothing more than one of Confucius's straw dogs, backed up by the complete and utter lack of law enforcement with relation to internet matters in such nations as Russia and Hong Kong.

So, Shlup, high horses have absolutely nothing to do with this. This is a matter of the old EoFF's principles being touted in the new EoFF, which is in active support of a bunch of smug bandits hiding out from the law by headquartering themselves where there is none. I'd like to see a return of the old, principled EoFF, but supporting gilsellers while laying the smackdown on people running private servers is pretty two-faced and hypocritical.

Unne has it more right--Sean can do whatever the devil he wants, whether it's right or not. If anybody's on a high horse, it's those of you who are trying to make the staff out to be 100% right 100% of the time when double-standards are being liberally applied on a regular basis.

The staff is the law here, and you can allow or disallow whatever you want--but can you lay off just a bit on trying to spoon-feed us made-up bullsnikky that doesn't make a whit of sense?

EDIT: I should add that I do support the decision to remove the private server link, although I just may dodge around the restriction myself in a way that is beyond the staff's control. I think, in this instance, it was an oldbie staff member applying the ethics of the old, principled EoFF, which is commendable. What is irking me so much in this case is the attempt to throw in made-up after-the-fact justification. This started out to be a supporting-the-staff post, but I went off on a wild tangent over the gilseller ads. Even though I went off topic, though, there is nothing in that rant that I would unsay.