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Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

notfound.org

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Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#41

Post by sliverstorm »

paulhauggis wrote: post #26
chimeracoder wrote: post #13

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 nec…

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.

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?

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#42

Post by r00fus »

sachingulaya wrote: post #34
chimeracoder wrote: post #13

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 nec…

A friend of mine growing up had an older brother who was abducted. His mother quit her job and spent the next 5 years looking for him. Eventually, she found him. She called her mother's home and her son picked up the phone. He had been abducted by his uncle and told that his mother had sent him to live with his extended family. No one suspected it. Now, I know n=1 is not a good sample size, but to downplay the signif…

Some way to tag your children (see Woz's attempts) are probably going to be more successful than alerting random people.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#43

Post by wpietri »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #31
zmj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

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.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#44

Post by thebigshane »

shanselman wrote: post #15

I did this in 2010 and reactions were mixed between "amazing idea" and "this is stupid." http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PutMissingKidsOnYour404PageEnt...

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.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#45

Post by mnicole »

hermannj314 wrote: post #36
mnicole wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this makes me a terrible person or someone with a bad photographic memory, but I literally cannot recall any missing person's face that I've seen on a billboard, a website, a milk carton, etc. even if I saw them daily. Worse, the more sites that adopt this concept, the less likely I am to remember those faces and - out of how plain awful and sad it is it is - the less likely I am to even want to spend time look…

We've come a long way from annual telethons or weekly tithings to every spare second of everything in our lives needing to be philanthropized - including 404 pages! You know those pages in books "this page intentionally left blank" - think of all the children we could save!!!! Over-exposure will only serve to desensitize us to worthy causes. Everything in moderation.

Ditto. I'd also imagine that if I were the loved one of such a victim, the last thing I'd want while perusing the internet is another reminder. And this isn't even getting into what the scum of the internet would/could do to exploit or otherwise vandalize these databases or the content therein.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#46

Post by 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.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#47

Post by glhaynes »

wpietri wrote: post #43
tomjakubowski wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

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.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#48

Post by autophil »

mikeash wrote: post #37
autophil wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If even ONE SINGLE CHILD is found and returned back into the loving arms of a parent due to a repurposed 404 page, the initiative is a great success. Don't you think?

That would depend entirely on the cost of the initiative and what other things, including potentially more effective ways of rescuing kidnapped children, could be done instead.

Your answer makes me want to quit HN forever and move to the planet Mars where humans don't live.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#49

Post by fusiongyro »

zmj wrote: post #27
paulhauggis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please read this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychology-... > When people are asked to trade their sacred values for values considered to be secular—what psychologist Philip Tetlock refers to as a “taboo tradeoff”—they exhibit moral outrage, express anger and disgust, become increasingly inflexible in negotiations, and display an insensitivity to a strict cost-benefit analysis of the exchange. W…

An interesting article about human behavior. How nice. However, I don't see a categorical disproof in there of the idea that saving lives is something worth spending time and money on, so could you take a minute and connect the dots for us plebs? Thanks.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#50

Post by [deleted] »

sliverstorm wrote: post #41
paulhauggis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

[deleted]
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