The requested resource is not currently available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition SHOULD NOT be considered permanent. The server owner wishes you to believe that this condition is permanent, but it isn’t really. If the resource is going to be permanently unavailable, the status code 410 (Gone) SHOULD be used instead. This response is cachable unless indicated otherwise.

The 447 response is primarily intended to assist the task of ego maintenance by notifying the recipient that the resource is intentionally but temporarily unavailable and that the server owners desire that people pay more attention to them. Such an event is common for resources belonging to emotionally unstable individuals when they feel the world is no longer going their way. It is not necessary to mark all resources GUIGTAID or to keep the mark for any length of time — that is left to the discretion of the server owner. When the resource becomes available again, as it inevitably does, it should be marked with 200 (OK) and clients SHOULD pretend that nothing ever happened.

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Ten comments here (latest comments)

  1. I’m sure whiners would find this useful.

    — Seamus #

  2. “clients SHOULD pretend that nothing ever happened” … they should, but they never, ever do. silly people.

    — patricia #

  3. Simply stunning. :)

    GFM <– immediately thought of Winer as well

    — Geof Morris #

  4. I immediately thought of April Fool’s RFCs.

    — Anonymous #

  5. idly.org (trackback)

  6. You Go, guy.

    — Dave #

  7. Ha. I needed that. I’m going to get some attention of my own now.

    — Elisha Marshall #

  8. This isn’t about anyone in particular. (I actually had forgotten that Dave pulled that stunt until the comments here reminded me.) It’s just a useful concept for a general behavior practiced by many different people. I’ve found that it’s useful for antisocial behaviors to be given names and URLs. It makes it easier to refer to them in conversation, and you can direct people here for further explanation.

    — Mark #

  9. Mark,

    Prior art would seem to indicate that Error 447 is, in fact, “Dropped by Accident in the Pacific Ocean”. Cf. http://www.gumbyware.com/~eric/http-errors.html

    Seriously, though, isn’t the Atom spec serving 447 as “Atom Unauthorized”? Cf. http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/08/18/atom_api_implementation

    — Ken Walker #

  10. Ken: yes, those two examples are where I got the number from. The first is of course a joke, and the second has been superceded.

    http://bitworking.org/news/New_AtomAPI_Implementation_Release2

    — Mark #

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