Missing Children Listings Replacing 404 Pages

[Sicklyboy]

A European initiative is putting pictures and biographical details of missing children on the well-known 404 Not Found pages.

Hosting firms, ISPs and media companies have signed up to put the information on what would otherwise be empty pages.

Anyone who runs a website is being encouraged to join the initiative to raise the profile of missing children.

Read More At The Source: BBC

I honestly think this is a great idea, though unfortunately with limited use. It's not often that a 404 is reached unless a link is (somehow) incorrectly pasted, or is an old, outdated link that doesn't exist anymore. However, for the times that one is reached, this could help a missing person be found. I would like to see a US based version of this be put into effect, but until then, I put this one up on my website; maybe, despite the very limited traffic my site gets, it'll help someone. See an example at http://sicklycraft.com/aswtweoh (just a random, garbage link to redirect to the 404)

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Anymore there isn't 404 pages. If the server received a 404 message most likely it will kick you back to the home page.

 

[Clarky]

one of the better ideas involving the internet I have read in a long time

 

[notmeanymore]

Nothing else comes to mind but "Neat."

 

[Sicklyboy]

one of the better ideas involving the internet I have read in a long time

I would have never thought of it. It's brilliant, honestly. And really, who has a 404 page that holds any sort of special meaning? All mine said was "404 - Page not found" in the normal frame for my site, now it shows theirs. It's something, at least.

 

[Arras]

It is a pretty good idea. I got a page saying: "Page not found, just like how XX has not been found". I'm not sure someone who is 34 years old counts as a child, but whatever.

 

[Wizerzak]

First thing that came to mind: Madeleine Mccann
First missing child on 404 page: Madeleine Mccann

 

[1stClassZackFair]

First thing that came to mind: Madeleine Mccann
First missing child on 404 page: Madeleine Mccann

That's pretty weird lol

 

[ShadowSoldier]

The only problem though is... people like me, we don't hit that many 404's. It's very rare that I do.

But hey, it's better than having the notices rot on paper out in the streets on poles and shit. Hell, they don't even put the missing kids on milk cartons now.
No offense and not trying to sound like a dick, but to me, it seems like missing kid papers are just like missing dog notices. People will rarely glance at it, and when they do, it's just a quick looksy.

 

[1stClassZackFair]

No offense and not trying to sound like a dick, but to me, it seems like missing kid papers are just like missing dog notices. People will rarely glance at it, and when they do, it's just a quick looksy.

Very true. At my local Wal-Mart there's dozens of missing kid flyers on a wall but no-one really takes the time to look at them.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Is this going to be formatted similar to an ad? If so, even fewer people are going to see these missing children. I believe this is a great idea regardless.

 

[nando]

No offense and not trying to sound like a dick, but to me, it seems like missing kid papers are just like missing dog notices. People will rarely glance at it, and when they do, it's just a quick looksy.

Very true. At my local Wal-Mart there's dozens of missing kid flyers on a wall but no-one really takes the time to look at them.

I always pay attention to the missing ads but they are always of people that went missing when they were children like 20+ years ago and I just don't see how I could ever recognize anyone if I saw them.

I've never seen freshly missing children.

anyway. that's a noble idea. unlike the damn Captcha guy. incase you guys don't know, in captcha, when there are 2 words, one word is scanned and the other is jumbled. the jumbled word is the one they check for, the scanned one is to get people to transcribe documents into a digital record from the national library. the guy that came up with it makes a ton of money out of that and I believe we should have people paid to do the job not the masses tricked into doing it for the profit of one guy. why not have more people employed? so I intentionally write wrong words when encountered with a captcha. I usually try and make it offensive while maintaining similarity to the scan. I know that was off topic but it is a similar idea.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Is this going to be formatted similar to an ad? If so, even fewer people are going to see these missing children. I believe this is a great idea regardless.

You'd actually be surprised at the number of people who still don't have adblock on.

 

[Snailface]

Sorry, couldn't resist. (bad snail)

This is in all seriousness is a great idea. Hope its ported to the US.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Is this going to be formatted similar to an ad? If so, even fewer people are going to see these missing children. I believe this is a great idea regardless.

You'd actually be surprised at the number of people who still don't have adblock on.

Really? With it being so accessible and installation being hassle free, I assumed the majority of internet users would be utilizing AD blockers.

 

[shakirmoledina]

Very good and beneficial concept put into place. Now I hope I get a 404 page.

Gbatemp needs to implement it too.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Is this going to be formatted similar to an ad? If so, even fewer people are going to see these missing children. I believe this is a great idea regardless.

You'd actually be surprised at the number of people who still don't have adblock on.

Really? With it being so accessible and installation being hassle free, I assumed the majority of internet users would be utilizing AD blockers.

I see comments on tons of IGN articles and even YouTube itself of people who bitch and complain about ads. Even GameTrailers. It's, surprisingly, still not that well known.

 

[FAST6191]

I thought they had been doing it for years so as to find that girl with the rucksack.

More importantly I hope they have it render as proper 404 (custom ones are very much allowed but there is still a standard)- I am still a tiny bit ticked off at various ISPs and DNS providers when they redirect a failed lookup (or sometimes just for fun) to ads or a search page. Granted I rarely deal with automated domain lookup that is not a whois or have programs that have truly self contained browsers (or grab the OS one, gimp it and stick it in a window) but this is more of a principle thing.

 

[mameks]

this is definitely one of the better ideas to have come out of the internet for a while

 

[Just Another Gamer]

This is a great idea although I don't really get 404 errors alot but nonetheless its a great idea.