Reasonableness Tests for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXII

Waffle-weave blanket

Are you familiar with the "reasonableness test" concept? It's simple: before you provide an answer to a question or perform a task, ask yourself, "Is my response reasonable?" You could save yourself some embarrassment. For instance, you're making change at your garage sale and someone pays for that six-dollar bicycle with a crisp new ten-dollar bill. Is it reasonable to give them a ten-dollar bill in change? a twenty? Of COURSE not! Well, we don't think MrsBrown performed a reasonableness test before she dashed off a review of a cotton blanket at Kohls.com. 

Crawl-Space Storm Shelters Designed by Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXI

This is a storm shelter, Jennifer

Over the years of compiling this space, we've seen some pretty cockamamie ideas spring from the minds of greedy freelancers. It's bad enough when someone who doesn't know one end of a screwdriver from the other tries to teach people how to tune up a two-cycle engine or someone who lives in a college dorm "explains" how to build a deck, but when ignorant writers put people in danger? That's crossing a line. The line was crossed back in 2011 when eHow.com's Jennifer Dermody tried to tell the world "How to Build a Storm Shelter in a Crawl Space." That the powers that be at Leaf Group (the erstwhile Demand Media) have left this rubbish visible for over a decade speaks to the reason why eHow is the punchline of a search-engine joke.

Lithium Mines for the Scientifically Illiterate - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXX

smectite vs. illite

One of the staffers was browsing the default newsfeed on her phone while her S.O. binged some Star Wars spinoff when an article about a potential source of lithium caught her eye. Thinking he might be interested in the info, she forwarded the URL to the staff geologist. Once he woke up from his nap, S. G. read the "information" with increasing horror. Oh, sure, freelancer Bob Yirka managed to get a few things right; such as the importance of lithium to the modern economy and the location of the apparent deposit, but as for the rest of "New evidence suggests McDermitt Caldera may be among the largest known lithium reserves in the world" (at phys.org)? Naahhhhhhh.

Linen Closet Construction for Dodos - The Freelance Files MMCCLXIX

linen closet shelves

Not long ago one of the staffers was wandering the nearly abandoned halls of the original eHow.com (most of the content has been farmed out, uncorrected, to a bunch of incapped niche sites with names like HomeSteady, ItStillRuns, and SportsRec) and she ran across a post with a familiar byline. Well aware that eHow.com contributor Nichole Liandi rarely rose above freelance hack if her topic was any sort of do-it-yourself project, our staffer read through the content and added it to the nomination list. Without further ado, let's see what sort of mess Nichole managed to make of the assignment "How to Build Shelving in a Linen Closet."

Rock Deformation for Moonlighting Chemists - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVIII

Extreme example of ductile deformation

It's not unusual – common, even – to find a freelancer who has made a valiant attempt to transcribe¹ useful information that could conceivably be seen as tangentially related to said freelancer's area of expertise. Then again, many of them seem to have a rather loose definition of "tangentially related." One such writer is Madhu, of DifferenceBetween.com; here making her fourth appearance on the DotD podium. Madhu claims to be a chemistry student, but also appears to be the site's self-appointed geology expert based on her previous appearances in the categories of mineralogy and sedimentary petrology. Today, our madhu scientist returns to regale us on structural geology and tectonics with her post, "Difference Between Ductile and Brittle Deformation."

Relief Wells for the Ignorant - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVII

Using a relief well to kill a blowout

Way back in 2010, when the BP Macondo well blew out – what the average person remembers as the Deepwater Horizon "well" – many a TV talking head brought up the topic of a relief well. The underwater gusher was temporarily capped after almost three months, but it was another two months before a relief well could be completed 2½ miles below the surface. In the meantime, many a self-appointed "expert" explained the notion of a relief well to the world, including WiseGEEK.com's Jeremy Laukkonen warbling about the topic in his post "What Is a Relief Well?" (now at niche site AboutMechanics.com, for some bizarre reason). Jeremy's take on the topic is, to be sure, about what you'd expect from a sometime auto mechanic and real estate broker turned freelancer...

Box Steps for the Incompetent Carpenter - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVI

Framing Box Steps

Hi again: it's been a while since we've taken to the 'net to flog greedy freelancers for their ignorance of their topics. Yet here we are again, this time giving the literary equivalent of the golf clap to yet another eHowian, one making his second appearance on the pages. Please give a... well, not warm but, tepid?... welcome to the pride of HomeSteady.com, Rick Paulas, this time gifting his attempt to explain "How to Build Box Steps" on the internet. Sadly, the one-time telecommunications major's knowledge of box steps is about the same as his knowledge of sprinkler systems – slim to none.