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Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons

451unavailable.org

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Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons

#2
I can see some reasoning behind this, but the reasoning is that the emphasis of the problem is "people are angry at the site because something is blocked so let's show an error code reflecting the real reason." Using 451 would take the emphasis away from the site and onto the legal oppressor.

On the other hand, why not inverse all inaccessible content to legal oppressors? Change the default meaning of 403 for example to "Access denied for permissive or legal reasons".

Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons

#5
post #2

I can see some reasoning behind this, but the reasoning is that the emphasis of the problem is "people are angry at the site because something is blocked so let's show an error code reflecting the real reason." Using 451 would take the emphasis away from the site and onto the legal oppressor. On the other hand, why not inverse all inaccessible content to legal oppressors? Change the default meaning of 403 for example…

Change the default meaning of 403? I don't think that's a good idea. When a user needs to be logged in to do something and they aren't, you show them 403. When access is restricted to people outside a network, they see 403. It'll be hard to force a new behaviour onto the existing web, easier to add a new HTTP code.

Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons

#6
Seems like a good idea, but the wrong way to achieve it. The right way, as I understand it, would be to write it up as an RFC and submit it to the IETF; and to contribute code for it to some of the popular web servers (apache, nginx, etc). The site doesn't make any mention of either of those things.

Edit: oops, I was wrong. There is an RFC and it's linked from http://www.451unavailable.org/what-is-error-451/

Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons

#8
post #3

Well, the cool thing about HTTP error codes is that you don't need a campaign or get permission from the W3C, you can just start using them if you want.

Yes, but that's true of other standards. Eg, I can start putting tags in my HTML if I want.

The issue is whether anyone else will expect this tag or code and do anything meaningful with it.

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