
Help find missing kids by putting them on your 404 page - bluesmoon
http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/02/missing-kids-on-your-404-page.html
======
theycallmemorty
I really thought we were going to take some steps forward in the UI world
after the whole Facebook/ReadWriteWeb fiasco. Am I the only one who thinks
this a bad idea? Now users who have already managed to get lost on your site
will be presented with irrelevant information rather than something that helps
them find what they're looking for.

~~~
blasdel
At least the 404 pages don't have comments on them directly, so you don't get
comments like "WHY DID YOU KIDNAP THESE KIDS" or myspace-profile-style
memorials.

~~~
joe_the_user
Hey,

THAT's what we'll do. EVERY 404 is will accuse the reader of being a pedophile
and demand they surrender. After all, some of the readers _will be_ pedophiles
and making them surrender is more important than anything else. The people who
object are obviously sympathizers...

~~~
derefr
And then every moved or broken resource will increase your site's PageRank for
the word "pedophile." I'd say that's a bad thing, but I think it's in the
spirit of <http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI> ;)

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smallblacksun
Do "have you seen this child" pictures really work, anyway? A lot of children
look pretty similar, so I wouldn't be confident enough to call the police even
if I had a picture of the kid in front of me when I saw him.

~~~
mortenjorck
I never understood them. Even if I had an ironclad memory of a kid's face from
a poster, under what circumstances would I conceivably run into them? If
they're trying to stay hidden, they're probably doing a good job of it, and if
their disappearance was not voluntary, I hate to say it, but I don't think
you're going to see them walking about in public.

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mnemonik
This is a really cool idea, I would like to have a drop in, embeddable
<script> widget type thing to add this to my 404 page. I just don't have time
to spare to port this code to django/python, a simple script will work on any
platform.

Anyone care to spend a little time on this? Possibly cleaning up the design to
be more aesthetically pleasing and possibly multiple themes/color schemes?

Again, really cool, I like it. Does some good and is cute at the same time.

~~~
bluesmoon
Scott Hanselman built a JS only version:
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PutMissingKidsOnYour404PageEnt...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PutMissingKidsOnYour404PageEntirelyClientSideSolutionWithYQLJQueryAndMSAjax.aspx)

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tseabrooks
Anyone have a link that shows the result? I didn't see one in the article and
I'd like to see how it looks. Did I miss a link or screenshot in the original
article?

~~~
CoryMathews
<http://bluesmoon.info/foobar>

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shrikant
404s are the new milk containers.

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tpinto
404 - Not Found. Also missing, this child: <img...

~~~
bmm6o
I imagine the browser/server conversation goes something like this:

B: Hey man, can I get /foobar.html, please?

S: Sorry bro, I can't seem to find that resource.

B: ...

S: Hey, speaking of things I can't find, here are some missing kids!

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)?

[edit formatting]

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kwamenum86
The only thing I disagree with is the authors appreciation of an XML return
type :) this is really cool though!

~~~
bluesmoon
haha :) XML is better than scraping HTML (though YQL lets me do that too). I
prefer JSON, which is one of the reasons I pass the service through YQL and
get JSON out the other end.

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lsb
Alas, their 404 page is just Blogger's:

[http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/02/missing-kids-on-your-
none...](http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/02/missing-kids-on-your-
nonexistant-404-page.html)

~~~
bluesmoon
The actual 404 page is on my website: <http://bluesmoon.info/foobar-or-
anything-you-want>

~~~
user24
You should add geolocation down to city level. Nice idea.

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InclinedPlane
How about: help find missing kids by putting them in your banner ads?

Seems a lot more people see those than 404 pages.

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GrandMasterBirt
The thing is, he is more correct on another issue. The 404 page will help but
the REAL issue is location-based reporting.

The real problem why I can't find missing kids is because I don't know which
ones are missing in my area. The down side is that I won't get to see kids
missing in CA while I am in NY and the CA kid was taken to NY.

The idea is: we need a service where given a person's location we can generate
the right set of missing children (those who are from the area, or might have
gone to the area).

After that we just need to put this information everywhere where important
information is not displayed (free areas) like 404 pages, or anything or
"please wait while we process xyz data, o and look at these missing children
vs this progress bar"

~~~
joe_the_user
Uh,

The authorities don't know which children are missing in your area either.

Most child kidnappers are clever enough to move locations and not tell people.
There could be exceptions but it movement seems to be more the rule.

~~~
cryptnoob
"The Database" if such a thing existed, should have a field for "probable
state". This field could be filled in by the police detective in charge of the
case.

Most "kidnappings" are just parents stealing their kid from the parent that
got custody. While a formal accusation of that parent, sans evidence, is and
should be, illegal, if the mom says, "I think my ex is working on a fishing
boat in Alaska", putting AK in the probable field is a good bet.

Services like this could then geo-ip serve content based on state abducted,
and state probable.

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clistctrl
I'll add it to my site, kind of makes me conflicted... its a great cause but i
really don't want my users to see a 404 error :)

~~~
bluesmoon
ok, github here: <http://github.com/bluesmoon/404kids>

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volomike
Now this is a fantastic idea.

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darien
This is an interesting concept which may be picked up by online news
organizations.

