Missing Children Listings Replacing 404 Pages

[Tom Bombadildo]

Spoiler

I'm not going to make myself very popular, but so be it...

I'm not fond of the idea.

Please lemme explain.


1. First off, there's the localization problem. There's usually no point in showing Europeans missing American children or vice versa (I'll get to the exceptions). Or even above...say...a 300km radius of the previous home (and that depends on how populated the area is). That means that it's not just that webmasters should just slap some 'missing' pictures on their site...they will have to allow the NotFound project to check the location of the 404-ing person and use that to show a local picture on their website (well, okay, not exactly website, but...you know what I mean). Fun...those surfers who block their location are out of the loop (well...unless they don't mind getting a picture of someone missing on the other end of the globe).

2. Not counting that...just how successful was that whole "photo on milk carbon" thing anyway? My bet: not very. I sometimes see pictures of missing people in the train station, and I can tell you this: I wouldn't recognize the person if he or she was standing directly next to it with a big purple arrow above. The reason: I don't expect to see that guy. Honestly...that beggar I pass on the street could be Bill Gates or Reggie Fils-Aime (when not in fancy suit, obviously), or no matter who. They're out of my field of attention. On my way to work and back, I can wade through entire hordes of people and not see anyone. And I'm not the only one: we all do it. And with good reason: in any urban area, the chances of actually seeing that someone is about as close as winning the lottery.

3. And it gets worse. Think about it: why does a child goes missing in the first place? Many reasons. Let's take things from the least to the most likely of them:
* child rapist/murderer/scum. They exist. But even just looking among missing children, these are the least likely cause. But even then: it's not as if you're "just" going to find them by a picture. Gruesome as the details may be, spreading a picture around isn't going to actually help.
* child lost its way home. Sooner or later, he or she will either find back the home, and if nothing else the police.
* the child's running away from home. Okay...and why does the child does this in the first place? Like it or not, but teens WILL revolt against their parents at some point. They'll run off, do some stupid things teen do (to those above 25: we were young too, right?), find out they're not as mature as they thought they were and return home. Hopefully not pregnant in an anti-abortus state.
* abduction by one of the parents. Marriage and splitting up is a wonderful thing, isn't it? You suddenly have to split up everything. And while chainsaws aren't allowed, the real life result sometimes isn't THAT less frightening. I've heard more than one tale where desperate parents had almost no other option but to abduct their own child because the former other half was a bitch or bastard about it.
Even more fun if different countries are involved: the child is glad of the long vacation (erm...at the start, at least) and plain out trusts the abductor. Probably for good reason.

4. That's also the final reason why I disagree on the idea: it makes the world look like an insecure place. It's as if the whole world is somehow "wrong" because a child is not where he or she is supposed to be: constantly supervised by parents and getting worked at school to fit in that model that can withstand the ratrace of a boring routine in a world that holds no secrets.

Spoiler'd your post and removed some of it so this isn't large as hell.

1. Considering there are teens that can run away across the globe, I fail to see how this is an issue. Besides, I would assume websites hosted in Europe would post a European one while a website hosted in the US a US one.

2. That's kind of a stretch; just because you don't look for missing people/pay attention to peoples faces doesn't mean everyone else does. I used to have this neighbor who spent her retirement going out and looking for missing kids and has been quite successful. But I do agree with your point, not a lot of people go out of their way to look for missing children, but it's not as if everyone just doesn't give any kind of fucks.

3.

Spoiler

Your first and third bullet seems to be your only plausible ones out of that list. I'll start with some more obvious reasons first: According to some (probably bullshit, but meh) surveys online, the estimated percent of kids ages 8-12 who have cell phones is around 75%. If a kid gets lost, the parents can just...y'know, call them. Problem solved. I also don't know very many kids under 15 who walk...anywhere by themselves, so if a parent allows their 10 year old son/daughter just leave the house for whatever reason without some way of contacting someone, they're doing it really wrong. Also, I would guess that parents would first go looking for the child (usually involving some kind of search party containing neighbors, family, etc etc), then they'd call the police, then if the child doesn't show up in the next 24-48 hours, they'd put up the photos. I'm pretty sure parents don't shit their pants and print off hundreds of flyers until they're sure the kid is lost.

If a parent has to abduct their child from the other because he/she is a bitch/bastard, then I would assume the bitch/bastard would just know right away who abducted the child so um...ok.

4. Uhh...The world is an insecure place no matter how you look at it. I'd rather teach people that the world is a really shitty place where some precautions should be made than teach them everything is happy time rainbow land.

I think I see where you're going with this, but you're kind of overreacting. I see no reason how this could have a negative impact on...anything. At all. It's like going to a birthday party and being served cake; who cares if it's white or chocolate or whatever, it's fucking cake and it's goddamn delicious.