Wow, now you are saying there should be legal action over a 404 error? Calm down and don’t be so over the top for a simple web site. There’s 100 ways to find whatever you’d get out of nps.gov.
I believe the govt. has sufficient resources to host the myriad of web servers they provide on their own hardware and do not put each and every one one some hosting service myself. They do probably contract the staff to run the data center, and those people are all at home. So if anything goes wrong, and the server does not work, the basic home page will give an error. Would you rather have had them shut it down entirely, or put such a notice on each and every page?
I don’t think you have much of a grasp of web services beyond a few simple pages on some small site.
I also don’t doubt that Obama would filter down an order to shut off all web servers. USA people have become lovers of trite glitz and will stamp their feet and cry if you take away their pretty web sites. No matter the content, which as I said right off, exists in better forms outside of govt. servers.
Since I’ve built websites for large organizations with thousands of pages and millions of monthly site visitors for more than a decade, I’d say my grasp of web services is fine for this discussion. What’s your grasp look like?
No one said there should be legal action over 404 - Canon has a legal right to have their grant money properly stewarded. That is the issue. If you were the donor, you’d understand.
The point isn’t where we can dig to find info, the point is they had no right to pull down fully funded sites, cams, etc. under the false pretense of lack of funding.
As for what I’d rather see, 404 messages are rendered automatically and can contain any content the site owner chooses, therefore, should one be rendered, the 404 page should be informational with a link to doi.gov if that’s the ultimate place to go should there be a failure.
There was no reason to redirect a perfectly functioning site.