Don't wanna see 404 no more October 13, 2010 9:48 PM   Subscribe

Login Error / Broken Link. Tried to log in. Was told to use a captcha. Didn't. Clicked log in and got a page which said: "Go back and use the captcha to log in." Clicked the "Go Back" link and got this page: https://​login.metafilter.com​/login/ which doesn't exist.

Speaking of which, a more creative 404 page would be nice. ;)
posted by zarq to Bugs at 9:48 PM (42 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

The broken link is pretty much something pb needs to fix personally. As far as the 404 page, suggestions?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:50 PM on October 13, 2010


I was (mostly) joking! Poor pb has enough to do without me adding to his workload, after all!

On the other hand...

What about something helpful? Show the footer bar. Which is not only already coded, but also already provides helpful links to get people where they want to go? :)
posted by zarq at 10:00 PM on October 13, 2010


Fixed! Thanks for the detailed info.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:12 PM on October 13, 2010


pb, you're very quick!

Thanks, and you're welcome! :)
posted by zarq at 10:16 PM on October 13, 2010


Oh! I see Fuelly has a 404 in the 'more creative 404 page' link.
posted by unliteral at 10:16 PM on October 13, 2010


The 404 should be a picture of Samantha in a lamb costume apologizing for keeping her father from spending one hundred percent of his time fixing minor details here.
posted by pracowity at 1:44 AM on October 14, 2010 [5 favorites]


jessamyn writes "As far as the 404 page, suggestions?"

Something featuring the BanHammer.

Isn't there a picture of Matt holding a big ol' hammer made by a user?
posted by Mitheral at 2:02 AM on October 14, 2010


Ideas;

Haunted looking man " this page was here but ....Not Antmore!"

Text adventure screen: you search the website and find nothing. It is very dark. Perhapse you should go back and try again. End with a little blinking underscore.

Why is there no page here? ( jessamine ghost drawing) It is a mystery.

Shameless personal plug- Grar monster screaming This page Aint Here!

Or something to that effect.
posted by The Whelk at 2:33 AM on October 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


Jessamyn

Auto correct is the devil's work.
posted by The Whelk at 2:34 AM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


This photo with a funny, yet informative caption, should be on the 404 page.
posted by nomadicink at 2:38 AM on October 14, 2010 [26 favorites]


It could say Meta404 in mefi colours.
posted by bjrn at 3:33 AM on October 14, 2010


A rotating Williams Carlos Williams parody would sick the site into a black hole.
posted by The Whelk at 4:14 AM on October 14, 2010


WHAT.

THE.

FOUR-OH-FOUR.

PB!
posted by deezil at 4:20 AM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


The page you are looking for cannot be found

So I'll just go ahead and suggest you consider therapy and/or DTMFA
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 4:21 AM on October 14, 2010 [4 favorites]


The page you are looking for cannot be found.

Just kidding! We just shut down the site like two seconds ago. Gone forever!
posted by shakespeherian at 5:01 AM on October 14, 2010


Auto correct is the devil's work.

It sure is. Many years ago, the company I worked for sent me to one of our client sites to provide them with some training on Microsoft Word. At one point I was showing them the auto correct feature and how you can configure it to do all sorts of neat things.

One person attending the course said, "So I could make it so every time I type the name of my boss, it changes it to 'dickhead'?"

Thinking this would make a good example, I showed her how to configure auto correct to do exactly that. She thought it was hilarious and spent several minutes trying out the feature.

"Ok... now change it back," she said.

"Nope. You change it back. I showed you how to do that just now," I replied.

"I don't remember what you did!" she protested.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," I said.
posted by FishBike at 5:37 AM on October 14, 2010 [13 favorites]


Man, every time FishBike tells that story he forgets the punchline:

And now that woman is running for Governor of California.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:38 AM on October 14, 2010 [5 favorites]


I like that photo of Jessamyn standing on the servers. (I don't think they were MeFi's servers, though.....)
posted by zarq at 6:54 AM on October 14, 2010


I like that photo of Jessamyn standing on the servers.

They're not even servers, just decommissioned old PCs that are in the storage room which is otherwise known as "jessamyn's office"

I like nomadicink's suggestion, I have always loved that photo.

And The Whelk, you know that picture isn't mine right? I think I ganked it from ... Something Awful maybe? This is probably as good a place as any to mention that I made it to the playoff level in the Internet Minileague of my online trivia league and only didn't progress to the championships because I couldn't remember what DARPA stood for. This is especially embarassing because I made a post about them less than a year ago.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:20 AM on October 14, 2010


Personally I think this picture should be on the 404 page.
posted by m0nm0n at 7:21 AM on October 14, 2010 [2 favorites]


There is no Cabal. And they didn't remove the page you are trying to get to.

Please try again.

And tell no one about this.
posted by quin at 7:44 AM on October 14, 2010


I like m0nm0n's pic with all-lowercase Helvitica, sans punctuation "have a seat metafilter will be with you shortly".
posted by BeerFilter at 7:56 AM on October 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


The 404 definitely needs to say GRAR.
posted by languagehat at 8:19 AM on October 14, 2010


Auto correct is the devil's work.

Excuse me?
posted by auto-correct at 8:39 AM on October 14, 2010 [12 favorites]


Defense Advanced Research Projects... um... uh.... er... If I had to guess, I'd say "Agency?"

Who the hell came up with such a stupid name, anyway?
posted by zarq at 8:43 AM on October 14, 2010


They're not even servers, just decommissioned old PCs that are in the storage room which is otherwise known as "jessamyn's office"

Ah! Wow. That's a lot of PC's.

I like nomadicink's suggestion, I have always loved that photo.

It is a great photo. cortex's shirt always cracks me up. :)
posted by zarq at 8:45 AM on October 14, 2010


Jessamyn, I did not know that.

I wish I was home so I could try out some gar monster 404s....

The three mods pic needs a kick-ass, possibly orating caption.

"that thing you want is a thing that doesn't exist. Why not try again?"

Or something.
posted by The Whelk at 8:54 AM on October 14, 2010


Three mod pic captions:

"OH HIGH, what are you doing here?! The page you were looking for can't be found, perhaps you need to look elsewhere?"

"We're so happy you found a page that doesn't exist!"

"OMG YOU FOUND US! But we're not the page you were looking for, wouldn't you rather find that? Here's how..."

"We don't where the page you're looking for is, but we have this goofy picture instead. If you looking for a page, here's how to search for it..."

The verbiage depends on what the mods want the page to say and what actions, if any, they want to user to take. Maybe a link to the search page or put the search box there, along with links to the subsites? Zarq's suggestion for at least being the footer there sounds good, so I'll just claim it as my own.

Wasn't there another funny pic of the mods that was sort of similar to this, they were in someone's apartment being goofy? and there was a funny one of pb looking like grizzly adams or something similar, right? Maybe rotate them for comedic effect? Of course someone has to code all that, which takes them away from doing something important so...yeah
posted by nomadicink at 9:13 AM on October 14, 2010


404 errors should automatically forward the user to Reddit.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:22 AM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


404 errors should take you to a plate of beans or a picture of taters (hardcore, of course).

Bonus points for a plate of beans spelling out Metafilter with a side order of hardcore taters and bacon.
posted by misha at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


Hello sentient being!

Please do not be alarmed! You are experiencing a 40410 Error at this substantiation of spacetime.

You may be attempting to access a page/file/construct/emotion that is not currently available in your universe or universe-like region. You may wish to alter either your request or your spatio-temporo-planar location in order to access the MultiFilter family of data entities in a way that better suits your needs.

Cabal-level entities may now access their PersonalFilter by interfacing their Individual Resource Locator construct with this page, or any page in most levels of the MultiFilter.

Have a nice day! There is no Cabal!
For certain values of "is", "no", and "Cabal".
posted by Rock Steady at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


The 404 page should say "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG"
posted by not_on_display at 12:04 PM on October 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


It should say WTF LOL in big letters, and have several OMFG links underneath that lead to the various subsites.
posted by qvantamon at 12:32 PM on October 14, 2010


My current favorite 404.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:11 PM on October 14, 2010


404 page image should be keep_on_fucking_that_chicken.gif
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 1:57 PM on October 14, 2010


I think the 404 page should have a simple "not found" message at the top, and a perpetually open thread--with images, emoticons, and threaded comments--below.
posted by maxwelton at 7:07 PM on October 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


I think three mod pic with caption is the only way to go. Except then I'll spent all my time trying to reach the 404 error screen.
posted by grapesaresour at 11:14 PM on October 14, 2010


What about an animated .gif of Cortex doing his drum roll from that contest video?
posted by Brainy at 6:50 PM on October 17, 2010


his eyes darting back and forth

back and forth
posted by The Whelk at 7:45 PM on October 17, 2010


Brainy: What about an animated .gif of Cortex doing his drum roll from that contest video?

Oh hey that was my fault!

And Flickr seems to have decided to not serve the animated gif any more. Let me see if I can find a local copy; I have this feeling it's on a crashed hard drive. In the meantime, there was also video.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:26 AM on October 19, 2010


Oh of course I did that on my SERIOUS BUSINESS machine.

Cortex. Drumming.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:50 AM on October 19, 2010


As far as the 404 page, suggestions?

How about, "you're all meta-ed out...."?
posted by cjorgensen at 10:20 AM on October 19, 2010


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