Talk:List of HTTP status codes/Archive 2

Citations and verifiability
This article has been in need of proper citations for quite some time and I've finally added them. I've even gone to the trouble to use shortened footnotes to cut down on size but after I added them User:OrangeDog reverted the citations wholesale claiming "massive over-referencing". User:Nezek also voiced concerns about the lack of citations in above. OrangeDog replied above: "As for inline citations, if you want to go through the article and put a &lt;ref&gt; on every sentence linking to the same RFCs that are already given at the top of the page, or next to the status code, be my guest."  As best I can tell this article is not exempt from meeting the requirements of the Verifiability policy so it most certainly should have proper citations. --Tothwolf (talk) 18:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not only have you added an inline citation to every code, but to every sentence of every code, when there are only 3 or 4 sources in total for this article, which were explained in the lede, or where necessary in the article. Other list articles don't feel the need to add 66 separate footnotes for 15 sources. RFC 2068 should not even be included at all, as all the information to those codes was taken from RFC 2616, making the citations incorrect. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 14:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * References are a good thing, and MediaWiki knows how to consolidate them. Sections and pages are overkill when the status code is almost always a section title.  I've taken Tothwolf's work, tweaked it accordingly, and updated the article. RossPatterson (talk) 19:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * While I appreciate the trouble, I don't think merely linking to the RFC document related to a particular section is adequate. The reason is I found many small errors and deficiencies in this article while checking each section. A direct inline citation for the section of the RFC that is supposedly the source for the material in this article makes it much harder for such issues to creep in and allows them to be fact checked and corrected in a much more efficient manner. I don't mind putting the short citations into the main References section if User:OrangeDog happens to dislike having them in their own Notes section but for an article referenced as much as this one is by other sites, this article absolutely should be using direct inline citations and not just general links to the various RFCs. While adding references for this article I found a huge number of incoming links and even open source software programs that are taking the text of this article as the gospel truth for HTTP status codes. The fact that this article had almost no inline citations previously makes this even more disturbing as the errors and omissions are very likely to be propagated by those who trusted this article without doing additional fact checking. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec) I added proper inline citations, something this article has needed for a long time. As it is now you cannot tell which part belongs to which RFC document. Not only did you again remove valid citations; you also removed corrections to some of the sections. Your arguments amount to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and the fact is many list articles are either made up of wikilinks to other articles (which themselves should be referenced) or are very poorly referenced and in need of improvement. You've had WP:OWN issues with this article for quite some time and if this persists I will open an RFC and take this to a noticeboard. --Tothwolf (talk) 19:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Much better, but as before, RFC 2518 references are incorrect and should be replaced with RFC 4918. Also, please no not accuse me of bad faith editing. Every edit to this article and talk page have been in the best interests of the encyclopaedia. Do not be surprised when a massive edit such as you made is reverted in its entirety. In future, consider making different changes in different edits. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I made no accusations re WP:OWN, I stated a fact and you've previously been warned about it. Do we need to link to diffs? Your revert of my corrections and additions of citations was out of line, period. --Tothwolf (talk) 20:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * looks like an accusatuion to me. I'll drop it now. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Been looking through the article again and some of the citations are still inappropriate/misleading/wrong. This is why one should actually check citations before one adds them, asking the original authors (of which I am not one) if necessary. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Code 421
I have removed the 421 code as I cannot find any reference, official or not, for this status code in HTTP. It is used in FTP for too many connections so I am assuming it is just incorrectly placed here. Robert.maclean (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

span id="codeNNN"?
I'm not sure what this edit is for. I can see how it might have very limited, personal use in some cases, but it's probably not generally useful enough to keep, since it somewhat gets in the way of other editors improving the article. Anybody else concur? --Interiot 18:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I removed them. The only possible use I can see for them is for a personal stylesheet (either monobook.css, or within one browser's settings).  If that's the only use, the benefit is marginal at best, and the span tags serve to clutter up the wikitext.  If there were other reasons for the span tags, feel free to explain and reinstate them.  --Interiot 15:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * They can actually be used as HTML anchors. Although reinstating them now would be useful since we've created all the redirect pages.  —Dispenser 03:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just reinstated these in a different way, using the tag. Now it's possible to link to individual codes. Randall M Hansen (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Code 308 Resume Incomplete
I'm seeing these in my server logs when my XP box attempts to PROPFIND a DAV folder (unsuccessfully). I'm tracing this error message to a Google Code proposal for Resumable POST/PUT HTTP requests. -- SpareSimian (talk) 19:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Errors or codes?
I once received the error message:

Is it informational? Or is it not a status code at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.62.142.66 (talk) 20:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a proprietary error message, not an HTTP status code. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

How to return the status code
Oops, I went and made the edit for this, as I was on a mission.

I came to this page on a Wikipedia search for "HTTP Status Codes", it was an immediate redirect.

I would vote for that to be this page's name, not "List Of."

Anyway, I was looking to make edits to my web sites to be able to return everything in the HTTP header, including the status code. I googled around, and it just wasn't coming up. My sites are at an ISP, meaning I can't edit the server config, and it wasn't letting me simply emit the HTTP Status Line.

The explanation I found could be expanded into a large "how-to" article, but I find the brief paragraph that I added will go a long way to helping anyone else searching for the basic information of how to return the darn things.

There are three hyperlinks, the first is to an RFC, the others give the exact phrase to search for on the referenced pages. It's a shame there isn't a URI syntax for skipping down to text on someone's page without the aid of a 'name' anchor in the source. (I vote for that too. ;-)

HTTP Status Codes do not exist in a vacuum, and I believe my brief little blurb gives some context to the codes. Until there is a better (or any) Wikipedia page on how the web server and userspace-admin can return the status codes being discussed, I recommend this edit stay.

As for merging more text on the status codes into this page (as asked about on the top of the live page), I vote to go ahead and do so, obviously with appropriate redirects from the original pages.

Double Think (talk) 02:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The text you added is specific to the Apache web server. ".htaccess" is Apache specific and does not apply to any other web server. I don't think the article should explain how to return a status header, it's completely different depending on the server. If anything you could maybe add a guide for Apache as an external link (as an example of how a web server does it). ShadowFusion (talk) 06:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * According to Wikipedia, "As of June 2008 Apache served 49.12% of all websites." It seems reasonable to me to put an "if" stmt pointing to external links of the Apache mechanism. You yourself just said pointing to an external link was appropriate, and if anyone else want to add links for other lesser web servers, well, that's how Wikipedia works - people add information, and sometimes reorganize it.


 * But now you've deleted the information from Wikipedia, and it no longer exists. You gave no rationale for proclaiming why this page *has* to be sterilized of this information, as opposed to getting enough of this information to truly say it needs to be moved elsewhere. I'm sure you can come up with a rationalization for wiping out this tidbit of useful information, but you are being overly anal-retentive in having deleted this information entirely out of Wikipedia.


 * Adjust the way it is presented perhaps, but don't delete it.


 * Double Think (talk) 21:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't mean to undermine your contribution. It's appreciated, but I just don't think it suits the article. This is of course up for debate, I'm by no means an expert at the topic or Wikipedia in general. I also would never want to delete your work permanently. Wikipedia keeps a backup of everything, you can find it here and in the history section of the page.


 * I think an external link at the bottom of the page would be appropriate. I understand Apache is extremely popular and I myself use it exclusively, but I think the article needs to stay true to the official standards, and not how each individual server implements them. That's my opinion anyway :) ShadowFusion (talk) 04:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Your straight-jacket is "the article needs to stay true to the official standards." If the "List of" is dropped, that reason of yours goes away. The top of the article can say 'This is a list of HTTP status codes, with some directly related information.'


 * Face it, there's not the slightest reason for this page to exist, except as a some sort of Wikipedia Vanity page. Oh look, everybody, because Wikipedia has a high search engine ranking, people looking for HTTP status codes are causing even more Wikipedia traffic, Wikipedia is sooooo important.


 * Anyone googling for a list of HTTP status codes hasn't the slightest need for this page. It's adding nothing to the web in its current sterile format. On that basis, I recommend opening the page up to edits directly related to status codes, even if there are web server specific ones. There's no reason not to. I've explained the pro reasons.


 * Or just delete this page, that'll clean it up to perfection.


 * Regarding "consensus", how many people does that take over what amount of time? In other words, what are you talking about, or expecting to see that would qualify?


 * Double Think (talk) 06:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Before reading this you should note my reply in the "table" section. I can understand if your annoyed I deleted your work, but seeing as nothing is ever deleted in Wikipedia, this shouldn't be a problem.


 * First of all: Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide. Even if it gets ranked highly, that doesn't mean its function should change based on what people are looking for. This page is useful anyway, that's how I found it.


 * I can't see what information needs to be added here anyway. Specific server implementations should be left to their respective documentations. There's no point reproducing that material here. This page should only give an overview of the codes and give useful information on each code as appropriate. It should not have anything to do with how servers implement the standards. ShadowFusion (talk) 07:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually I just had a look at some of the stuff in your edit, it was actually quite useful. I apologise for jumping on it straight away, although I do still think it needs a little rewording. Mainly to do with it being specific to Apache.
 * I'm about to go ahead and move this page to "HTTP Status Codes" so there might be a place for it there. ShadowFusion (talk) 08:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you're taking this far too personally. Face it, there's not the slightest reason for this page to exist, except as a some sort of Wikipedia Vanity page. Oh look, everybody, because Wikipedia has a high search engine ranking, people looking for HTTP status codes are causing even more Wikipedia traffic, Wikipedia is sooooo important. - Then why are you even here? If you think Wikipedia is so stupid, why waste your time trying to add this little tidbit of information to the article? Does adding that little bit of information somehow redeem the article? Mr.Z-man 15:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * To Mr. Z: I stated why I came here and I never said Wikipedia is stupid. I said the page was so antiseptic as to be generically equivalent to tons of other google results for the same search. The information I had added is hyperlinked to external "how-to" information, I did not state how-to information in my edit. It took a lot of searching for me to find it, and this is an appropriate place to note its existence to add value to this page. To SF: a page name change would be good. As for "Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide.", you might want to tell Wikipedia to get rid of the home page's "In The News"/Wikinews/Current Events sections for consistency with your stmt. ;-) See? Everything has some "give", some rationale that can be claimed as an exception.  Double Think (talk) 22:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Haha, never heard that before! "you can find it with google so lets just delete it". what kind of logic is that? Wikipedia does not and should never take availability as a reason to change articles, it is an entity for itself. --Nezek (talk) 04:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As most of the Google links are copies of this article (mirroring historical errors and typos), your argument becomes somewhat invalid. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Peer review?
Due to a combination of things, I have been drawn to this list. First of all, 404 error is far and away the most viewed article-related page on Wikipedia, implying that literally millions of people might find the information on this page useful. Secondly, computing is an underrepresented topic among our featured lists. Finally, this page is in pretty good shape from a referencing standpoint.

I was therefore wondering how regulars would feel about taking this to peer review and subsequently featured list candidates, with a view to eventually giving it exposure on the main page? —WFC— 19:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Error 105
There is an error I got when a picture URL wasn't available. This was the response the sever game back:

--70.62.142.66 (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe you'll find this is an internal error number for whatever software you're using and unrelated to HTTP Status codes - If the hostname isn't resolving, there's no way to send a request, let alone get a response code 94.193.107.67 (talk) 15:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Re-added external link
I've readded the link to All 57 Status Codes recognized by Apache servers this is a ground-breaking article and couldn't be more relevant. Produke 13:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * "ground-breaking"? How? I have no strong objection to the link but don't really see the benefit to linking how a particular server responds by default with these codes. 94.193.107.67 (talk) 16:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)