Throughout much the 17-year run of RuneScape Classic, the operation of private servers (PS) has been unauthorized by Jagex, to say the least. They were considered an issue over intellectual property matters, while also having the potential of hacking a player's real RuneScape accounts and installing all sorts of malware on the player's computer. For these reasons, the RuneScape Classic Wiki has long disallowed their discussion, promotion, and information that can be gathered from them about the official RSC.
With the official close of RSC on 6 August 2018, the game became abandonware. This doesn't technically negate the legal matters of private servers, but it recognizes that Jagex has closed their chapter on this edition of the game. Their interest sharply declined with the release of RuneScape 2 in 2002, and continued to the game's end, wherein they were doing the bare minimum to keep the game online. For many years before the end, Jagex showed little to no interest in fixing game bugs, enforcing game rules, and defending their intellectual property pertaining specifically to RSC.
It is debated that some RSC private servers can be considered museums for the game because of their efforts to preserve the game for free, thereby provided legal access. Even the RuneScape Classic Wiki itself became a preservation project for the game on the day Jagex closed it down.
It is because RSC is closed that the RuneScape Classic Wiki is now permitting — to a degree — information from private servers on the wiki. With the use of {{external|<ps>}} and {{private server}} templates, a sub-page to a subject can be created at /Private server with information on how that subject differs in a popular private server. Information in mainspace and important sub-pages like /Dialogue are for the official RSC as it was before it was closed. Judgement on what is considered a "popular" server is made on a case-by-case basis, but generally speaking should not be considered malicious to the user, their computer, files, and accounts, and their real RuneScape accounts, while also be completely free to play.
Private server pages should be organized by server name and include version numbers if possible, or approximate dates if not. A notice on whether the note applies to a single-player version should also be included.
While details about how game content differs in private servers compared to the official RSC is permissible on the wiki, advertising private server websites or similar is not allowed. It is up to the reader to research server names on their own, if they are so inclined.
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