
Turn your 404s into lost children alerts - jonny_eh
http://notfound.org/
======
chimeracoder
I appreciate the noble motives behind this, but programs like the AMBER alert
have not proven very effective[1].

Furthermore, abductions by strangers are _incredibly_ rare; most abductions
are by people that the child knows well (such as an estranged parent/relative,
etc.). These are the cases for which the AMBER alert is most likely to have
success, but they're also the cases for which it is the least likely to be
necessary (ie, people investigating the case are going to be several steps
ahead of a passerby who happens to drive by the billboard).

Also, 75% of children who are abducted and murdered are killed within the
first three hours, so the shelf life of these alerts is _incredibly_ small.
Even smaller for people who are sitting at the computer when they see the
alert, not driving on a freeway.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert#Controversy_about_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert#Controversy_about_success_rate)

~~~
paulhauggis
It seems like you are saying that the effort is futile because they won't find
them anyway.

It doesn't matter of they are "incredibly rare". We are talking about human
lives here. If it saves one life, it's worth it.

~~~
sliverstorm
_We are talking about human lives here. If it saves one life, it's worth it._

Ah, one of my favorite arguments. The good 'ol, "there is no price which is
too high to save a life (period, full-stop)".

Do you actually believe that? Really? Or am I just reading you wrong here?

~~~
inportb
We think human lives are priceless because we like to believe that everyone is
unique. There is no warranty replacement for children born defective; nor
could you replace them when they break, go missing, etc.

~~~
pharrington
Well obviously everyone _is_ unique in that there's only one of any given
life, regardless of whether or not anyone's life is qualitatively unique. But
it seems obvious (at least to me) that what's much more relevant is that as
self-reflective human beings, we have a responsibility to protect other human
lives, within reason. Of course, what "within reason" means is a whole subject
on it's own.

~~~
sliverstorm
That "within reason" is the key.

------
shanselman
I did this in 2010 and reactions were mixed between "amazing idea" and "this
is stupid."
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PutMissingKidsOnYour404PageEnt...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PutMissingKidsOnYour404PageEntirelyClientSideSolutionWithYQLJQueryAndMSAjax.aspx)

~~~
thebigshane
I like your implementation a lot better. It's faster, cleaner, and I (somewhat
irrationally) feel better about being able to look across 5 missing faces for
a match instead of just one.

------
thelicx
The 404 page of the website doesn't display any children:

<http://notfound.org/404.html>

~~~
zachalexander
Fortunately, they have a template email you can send to them:

> _Copy this e-mail and send it to a friend, your ceo or your company
> webmaster._

> _Dear_ www.notfound.org _,_

> _In the European Union alone, thousands of children are still missing. They
> run away from conflicts at home, are the victims of parental abductions,
> disappear after having travelled across the EU alone, or are abducted by
> criminals. But there is a way you can help, namely by installing the
> Notfound application. By doing this, automatically, a picture of a missing
> child will be posted on every 404 page of your website. This is how you can
> help Child Focus spread a maximum number of photos and help all missing
> children find their way home._

> _Discover the application on www.notfound.org._

~~~
thelicx
lol I will send them one :D

------
bmm6o
See related discussion from 3 years ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1148200>

And as I said then:

I think the intentions behind the idea - trying to do some societal good with
your web site - are great. It's just seems odd to me that the way you handle
not being able to find what the user wants is by showing them something
unrelated that is guaranteed to be not what they were looking for. What is the
attraction to doing this on a 404 page, vs say a banner ad (as suggested
elsewhere in the thread)?

~~~
INTPenis
I think it's supposed to be unobtrusive. Some sites don't want ads or banners,
I don't want them.

I honestly do not understand all the criticism this idea is getting here on
HN. 404 pages are generally just placeholders or pointers for UA's, they serve
no other purpose. Yet they're pimped out more than often for no reason other
than fun.

If all those pimped out 404 pages instead showed missing children, and if only
ONE child was found because of this, it would be worth it. Why the criticism?

~~~
bmm6o
How many 404 pages have you seen today? I just looked in my Firefox history,
and it appears I didn't see a single 404 page in all of August or September.
So first of all, there's the question of whether you would even get any page
views.

And in general, I think the HN mentality will push back against empty feel-
good gestures. If this is an important issue, it deserves to be addressed
prominently and in a way that will get results. Will putting a picture of a
missing kid on your 404 page get any results? Wouldn't putting a picture of
the same kid next to your front door be more effective?

------
seanmccann
Interesting but provides and awful and confusing user experience. Just 404 and
redirect back.

------
sadga
Seems ridiculous for any website without a very localized userbase.

~~~
fletchowns
Not really, the missing person could turn up pretty much anywhere. Even if it
leads to a single success story of somebody being found, I think it would be
worth doing.

~~~
zmj
Good point. In fact, you and I should go looking for missing children right
now. If there's any chance at all, it's worth doing, right?

~~~
tomjakubowski
There is significant opportunity cost in dropping everything to search for
missing children. There is practically no opportunity cost in changing a 404
page.

~~~
wpietri
not so sure about that. With 404 pages, a user was trying to do something, and
it's pretty much guaranteed that it wasn't looking for pictures of stolen
children.

A task-irrelevant interruption increases the likelihood that they give up or
get thrown off task, and certainly delays task completion. A 404 page is an
especially bad time to distract users because they're already in the weeds.

Were I wanting to use a site to help search for missing children, I'd probably
just devote some of the ad units to it.

~~~
glhaynes
Additionally, it induces anxiety/sadness/etc in lots of people. Some can
apparently just tune it out, but some are significantly emotionally affected
by this kind of thing.

------
pax
I can't help but find 'PAGE NOT FOUND, NEITHER IS * *.' construction a bit
cynical. It reads a 404 as unfortunate as a missing person.

------
largehotcoffee
Good motives, terrible idea.

------
jentulman
I like the concept, but one things that springs to mind is it's a bit ugly and
it's not very flexible. I know it needs to stand out, but 'd rather be able to
pull the relevant info in from an API and make my own efforts to have it fit
in with my own layout and still be obvious.

------
chrislloyd
They certainly arn't shying away from controversy. I got an ad[1] for
Madeleine McCann[2].

[1] <http://cl.ly/image/1a280E0N3a2I> [2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann)

~~~
danielweber
That first page _screams_ "troll" to me. If not for all the context from this
page I would assume it was a mean joke.

------
semenko
Interesting concept.

The actual 404 pages look like: <http://notfound-
static.fwebservices.be/404/index.html>

~~~
SirPalmerston
Here's an example of a live site - <http://feber.se/dsf>

~~~
saalweachter
Huh, that doesn't work for me. I tried both Chrome, Firefox, and Safari on OS
X. I don't see any content from notfound.org (ie, their little iframe) in the
source of the 404 page at all.

------
geargrinder
Looking beyond the merits of this particular use, this is a great idea for
creating valuable backlinks to your site. I wonder what Google thinks of
backlinks on 404 pages? I suspect it treats them the same as links from other
pages. 404s appear when there is a bad link, and Googlebot follows all links,
good and bad, so there is quite a potential here for increasing your backlinks
if you can get your code on somebody's site. Wordpress plugin, perhaps? :-)

------
rbellio
I love the philanthropic ideal that this offers but considering how many 404s
I see on a daily basis, would probably become depressed by all of the lost
children I'd wind up seeing.

Your webpage is supposed to be about delivering the content that your audience
expects. How many websites do people go to expecting to see lost children?

------
zendoo
There may be a small % of users hitting the 404 on their smartphones,of which
an even miniscule # of users will be in the vicinity. Another alternative is
that Foursquare could send a push notification for such alerts,embedded in
check-in messages for users in the vicinity.

------
jon_kuperman
Wow, things got real quickly. I love the idea but it does seem dark and
confusing.

------
eranation
I think it helps more the image of the site owner than the chances of these
poor children to be found, (though I don't think it can hurt anything, just
don't think it helps much) However hidden GPS tag (in a watch / shoes etc) on
my child that only I can use to locate them in the first 3 hours, now that's a
solution. Is there anything like this?

EDIT: a quick Google search suggests there is, are any of these solutions
really work?

------
k4gdw
Personally, I would think that every little bit of awareness on the topic
would be a good thing. In the context of a 404 message, timeliness wouldn't be
quite as important as it would be for the AMBER alerts. I would liken it to
the missing child photos on the backs of milk cartons. More effective as a
public awareness booster than in actually finding missing children.

------
lathamcity
Here's what it looks like, so you don't have to put it on your site to find
out (grabbed from the iFrame code they provide):

[http://notfound-static.fwebservices.be/404/index.html?&a...](http://notfound-
static.fwebservices.be/404/index.html?&amp;key=7c1767b30512b6003fd3c2e618a86522)

------
kentbrew
I had a similar idea, using missing kids and their names on CAPTCHAs. Won the
inaugural Hack for Good award at one of Yahoo's internal hack days in 2007 ...
sadly, it never shipped:

<http://kentbrewster.com/captcha-for-good/>

------
anjc
Is it just me or is there no sample page on the site? I had to go to a
participating webpage and find their 404.

It's a noble idea, i don't know if 404's are an appropriate place, and i don't
know if it'll have any real impact. Noble, though.

~~~
saalweachter
Were you able to find one? I clicked through to a couple of their
"participating websites" (google.com and hilarious.be are listed), generated a
404, and got bupkis. At that point I assumed this was some sort of bizarre
joke.

~~~
duskwuff
Their list of participating sites is mostly bogus. I think it's generated from
their form which prompts users to configure a site -- this would explain the
inclusion of some otherwise inexplicable "sites" like <http://facebook/> (yes,
no TLD) and <http://example.com/>.

------
michelleclsun
It is great to see such creative initiative of linking these nuisances in
technology to a good cause. Would it be possible to link to the location of
the browser for the missing children (or adults) in that area?

------
danesparza
It looks like there is also a 2 year old github project that does something
similar: <https://github.com/bluesmoon/404kids>

------
madsravn
I tried to see if they were doing it themselves. They were. But I don't
understand German...

23 years old Liege / Luik Zeer slank. Zwart haar. Donkere ogen.
Schoonheidsvlekje op voorhoofd.

------
madsravn
I tried to see if they were doing it themselves. They were. But I don't
understand Dutch...

23 years old Liege / Luik Zeer slank. Zwart haar. Donkere ogen.
Schoonheidsvlekje op voorhoofd.

~~~
athesyn
It's dutch.

"23 years old. Liege / Luik Zeer slim build. black hair. dark eyes. beauty
mark on the forehead."

------
muhuk
It says github.com is one of the sites helping. But the 404 page is still
showing the jedi octocat. Is the force not strong enough with me?

------
nathan_long
What happens if the image's URL was mistyped?

------
nnq
...great, I already imagine starting to use this and then feeling guilty that
my sites don't give enough 404s :|

------
dutchbrit
Would be great of they offered an API

~~~
moontear
They do offer a API: An IFRAME. Just calling for "an API" isn't really
constructive.

~~~
dutchbrit
It'd give you more freedom to implement it in your own design.

------
codegeek
Awesome idea and very noble. I wonder however if any users will have
objections to this.

~~~
drivingmenuts
If it's "for the children" one is not allowed to object or to hold any opinion
other than "that's the most excellent idea ever".

~~~
drivingmenuts
That was sarcasm, btw. Just in case that point was lost in because this is
non-verbal.

------
fatbat
Slightly OT but where is the data coming from? Is there a missing child API
somewhere?

------
gadders
First example I tried was for a 31 year old man. Strange definition of
"child".

------
kentwistle
Neat idea. I got a Madeleine Mccann missing alert straight away.

------
Dystopian
What sites are using notforund.org?

127.0.0.1 :-/

------
pwniekins
It's a shame it's so damned ugly.

------
aaron695
Total junk.

Campaigns like this are what's wrong with this world and the acceptance of
them in general is troubling.

For the 'players' as a draw card to get customers ($), it might bring in a few
I guess since the public is easily fooled by theses sort of self serving
campaigns that cause more harm than good.

But ethically I couldn't do it.

If you 'really' want to help kids donate $40 to a 3rd world charity, save a
real life and make you 404 professional instead.

------
pootch
The point of any website is to never have a 404 happen in the first place. In
which case, I would feel guilty burying a missing child link in a site that
would almost never show a 404 error. Might be good for a big site like
facebook though. That being said "milk cartoning" is a little controversial,
since it was introduced decades ago the results have been near zero.

------
seivan
How sad, In the samepl I refreshed like 20 times and every time it was a
female. The child Ruth Breton Ortiz came up twice.

Also, the language was in either dutch or danish.

------
azio
Good idea. It can be improved by showing local results based on the visitor
location.

