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I'm reading through the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. I don't think anything there precludes hosting InsaneJournal there. I feel that our existing Terms of Service falls in line with this. I'd love to have an open discussion about this, so please comment with concerns. Please keep all conversations civil.
No Illegal, Harmful, or Offensive Use or Content
* You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available content that is illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive. Prohibited activities or content include:
* Illegal, Harmful or Fraudulent Activities. Any activities that are illegal, that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation, including disseminating, promoting or facilitating child pornography, offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions, make-money-fast schemes, ponzi and pyramid schemes, phishing, or pharming.
* Infringing Content. Content that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property or proprietary rights of others.
* Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy, or otherwise objectionable, including content that constitutes child pornography, relates to bestiality, or depicts non-consensual sex acts.
* Harmful Content. Content or other computer technology that may damage, interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system, program, or data, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, or cancelbots.
I'd, personally, rather suffer the small bit of downtime we experience than have to worry about censorship of my content.
I'm concerned about the "offensive" content clause, because I feel like that could be somewhat subjective, and a lot of people use IJ to express themselves through their fictional writing. As another user said, I'm curious if that pertains solely to public content, or if personal private writings between friends count as well. Either way, I'm really worried this is about to alienate a LOT of users, myself included.
I think those questions need to be answered either by AWS or a competent attorney.
I would be infinitely more inclined to donate to some cause for you to buy new hardware in order to keep my various permanent accounts and journals I've spent a lot of money on than switching to a server that would render all those accounts useless. Especially when the outages are really not that big of a deal.
I think we're fine under offensive content/harmful content. No one is posting child porn here or distributing it. It's all really just written word. I don't see that being much of an issue either.
Are IJ's current servers failing? The outages really haven't been that big of a deal, but knowing more about what's going on there might be helpful. More than happy to donate to upgrading servers.
my main concern would be about pricing. i don't know how much aws costs, but would that affect how much we pay on our end? would it free up resources to work on the site's code at all?
I am more worried about AWS cracking down on IJ over offensive content. There's some things asked for on request coms that can make skin crawl. I don't know if DW has anything similar? But this might cause problems for you where offensive content is concerned.
If DW is over at AWS though, if its more affordable, and if its easier on you, I'm OK with AWS as an option. Anything to keep the site from going away entirely.
re: alternate plans for a hardware fundraiser mentioned in another comment
I understand people have concerns and appreciate that you want an open dialogue with your customer base, but your customer base has to look at you as the technical expert here. People are concerned that they will lose their writing, their journals, their paid accounts, their icons during the migration. As the technical expert, it is up to you to answer those questions and concerns and not necessarily automatically default to another solution.
Upgrading to new servers doesn't necessarily negate the concerns either. Again, you have to tell us what to expect from that kind of migration. Is upgrading to new servers a cost effective solution if you will need a fundraiser for it? I assume some upkeep will be necessary which will also cost money.
As for the concerns that people will have to move to Dreamwidth to escape Terms of Service, you've already established that DW is already hosted there.
Thank you for pushing progress on IJ. Your transparency is so appreciated.
With that in mind, it worries me, that the our writing that will be hosted by them could be used by Amazon. Is that a possibility?
I don't know anyone there, if I did, I'd help, but AO3 has a gaggle of lawyers that do pro bono work for AO3... maybe you can ask around if someone there would give you some non-binding legal advice about what some of the RP folk are asking... worse case is that they say 'no'...
As long as you've investing time in looking around...
But I've supported servers and it's hell when something goes down (and you've done a great job keeping things running!), so you have to do what's best for the site in general.
The bit about 'offensive content' is worded vaguely enough to be concerning at least, because sure stuff like CP is off-limits anywhere, but what about anything else?
What if we played out violent scenes? Or things with adult content? Is that obscene or inappropriate enough? Are we banned from anything 'non-consensual' even if it's as ficticious as the latest GoT episode? Does it make a difference if it's obvious fiction? Would things such as f-locking entries be enough to keep us covered, or would we have to keep all content family-friendly, as tumblr currently expects users to do?
Some fanfic depicts non-consensual sex acts. For that matter, a whole lot of mainstream romance depicts non-consensual sex acts; it's just considered okay if they "fall in love" after.
And the "otherwise objectionable" clause can be used to selectively ban anything the reviewer dislikes. This is always the case online - most TOS's have something like that - and it comes down to: do you trust the reviewer. I trust the staff here, who are in favor of fannish content and have a hands-off approach to content that isn't bothering anyone on the writer's friendslist.
I don't trust Amazon's reviewers, should they decide to look over InsaneJournal to decide if its content is suitable for their servers, or their business development plans, or whatever other reason they might discover to start investigating the contents of sites they host.
I happen to do this for a living and would be willing to offer you my knowledge free of charge.
Just let me know if you're interested. I'm not an expert in Terms of Service per se but I am in Cloud, HCI, and Hybrid. I might be able to help you navigate some of the other matters depending on what you want to do.