Latitude, Longitude, and Address... the Dummy Comparison

It's sad, but true, that a great many people out there writing for pennies have abso-lute-ly no idea what they're talking about (not unlike many a political commentator). We catch these faking freelancers making some of the most bizarre misstatements and misconceptions, which certainly makes it hard to believe anything else in that particular snippet of content. Take, for instance, eHow.com's Matt McGew, whom we caught attempting to tell people unlucky enough to read GoneOutdoors.com "How to Find Addresses Using Latitude Longitude."¹

Tie Plates for Dummy Framers

Tie plates on truss

We love learning new things here at the Antisocial Network, though not necessarily at the expense of "old" things (which one might define as "things we already knew"). That's why we were of mixed feelings about today's DotD nominee: s/he introduced us to something new, or more accurately, reminded us of some fairly useless trivia. The problem? WiseGEEK.com freelancer B. Turner went for the uncommon instead of the common when trying to explain "What Are Tie Plates?"

Turner must have gone straight to Google images to find out that a tie plate is, as s/he put it,

Schwinn Computers for Dummy Cyclists

Schwinn 12-function bike computer

We looked out the kitchen window at AN World HQ yesterday morning and spotted a peloton rounding the curve in the distance... it was 36° F at the time, but at least it was sunny. Even if he lived in our neighborhood, though, we rather doubt that Floridian (and eHowian) C. L. Rease would have been in the pack. Given the vague understanding of road cycling that Rease exposed in his SportsRec.com post "Schwinn Speedometer Instructions," we're pretty sure he hadn't ridden a bicycle since the first time he climbed on a four-wheeler...

Plywood Finishes for Dummies

Staining plywood siding

A lot of people learned to test spaghetti by pulling a strand from the boiling water and throwing it against the ceiling. Supposedly if it sticks, the pasta is "done." That's probably why the kitchen ceiling in a lot of "student rentals" is spotted with weird stains. The concept of "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" isn't unique to cooking, though: some content-farm writers employed it for any topic they didn't understand. Take, for instance, eHow.com's Marissa Wilson, who used the technique to cobble together "Construction: How to Finish Plywood" at HomeSteady.com.¹

RBIs for Dummy Baseball Fans

Counting RBIs

Our research staffers cover a lot of ground in their searches, no doubt about that. One thing our readers can take to the bank, however, is that they don't search for DotD candidates in places where they wouldn't normally spend much time themselves. That's why you don't often find nominations for content about beauty, first-person shooter games, or Macintoshes: they don't have the expertise necessary to debunk a freelancer's bogus statements. At least one of them does know baseball pretty well – the rules, not the personalities – which sets them apart from Kathryn Hatter as demonstrated in her SportsRec.com post "How to Calculate RBI."

Lithosphere for Earth Science Dummies

Difference between oceanic and continental lithosphere

Every once in a great while our researchers run across a combination of Q and A that is downright hilarious. Most of the posts that achieve this high honor are at content farms,  especially the ones where people are (allegedly) answering questions. You do know we're talkin' about eHow.com, right? Here's one such post: someone wanted to know, "What Percent of the Earth Is Covered by the Lithosphere?" and eHow's Susan Sherwood was right there to give the OQ an answer. Never mind that the answer, now at Sciencing.com, was just as stupid as the question...

Elapsed Time for Dummies

Digital clock face

The research staffers here at the Antisocial Network mentally file their "finds" into a loose group of categories: some potential DotDs earn nomination for failing to proofread their content, others for failure of logic. By far the largest category, especially when the subject is technical, is that of failure to understand the question. Today's nominee comes from that category, where eHowian Teresa J. Siskin managed to botch the incredibly simple "How to Calculate Elapsed Time" (now found at Sciencing.com¹).

Removing a Deadbolt for Dummies

Ummm, where's the handle, Jagg?

We see a lot of obvious pseudonyms as we surf the underbelly of internet publishing, aka content farms. Some are obvious: Vee Enne, for instance, is obviously someone with the initials V. N.; others are less so, like Elle di Jensen, aka L. D. Jensen. Today's DotD has the most obvious of all, not to mention that he's both an liar and a halfwit: meet eHow.com's "Jagg Xaxx," alleged PhD in art history who (at the time of publication of "How to Take a Deadbolt Off") had been writing for 25-plus years and worked as a "cabinetmaker" for twelve years – all while looking as though he was about 25 years old. Yeah, sure... isn't he a U T grad who stayed in Austin after graduation?

Pouring Concrete for Dummies

Compacting sand before pour

If you took a poll of the staffers at the Antisocial Network, pouring concrete might be one of their least favorite jobs – right up there with laying ceramic floor tile and working inside a sink cabinet to install plumbing. Well, one allows that the worst is replacing a sewage injector pump. Right that... Regardless, we were smart enough, no experienced enough to know that eHowian Marsanne Petty was talking through her hat when she posted "How to Pour Concrete on Sand" for the mother lode of misinformation, a post that's now migrated to GardenGuides.com.¹

Header Size for Framing Dummies

standard framing members

In case you haven't noticed, the staffers at the Antisocial Network do not suffer fools gladly. We know, we know: that phrase hasn't been "cool" since about 2008. On the other hand, we've used it a lot longer than that. Whether it's current or not, the sentiment is true; and that's precisely why we do not gladly suffer a fool by the name of Rich Finzer. Rich's status as fool (and DotD nominee) has been based on a Homesteady.com post titled "Proper Size Wood for a Door Header."¹

Renewable Energy, the Dummy Version

renewable vs. non-renewable energy sources

Every day, no, every hour, our research staffers stumble over content that should have been written by someone who's technologically savvy, but is in fact written by a member of the species we call the common technoboob. You know these writers by their slim grasp of technology and, as a result, a failure to understand language that is even marginally technical. The vast stable of journalism and creative writing graduates at eHow.com is full of technoboobs, writers like Heather Bliss (AA in journalism), who puts it all out there for her readers in "Uses of Renewable Energy Sources" at, of all places, BizFluent.com (Leaf Group finally moved it to Sciencing.com, though it's otherwise unchanged).

Sonic Logging for Dummies

What a sonic log looks like...

Although our staffers had seen the site in passing a few times, they'd not paid it a great deal of attention. After all, someone who claims, "I'm a wise geek!" is right up our alley. That was before yesterday, when we noticed that one of our repeat DotDs had almost 200 bylines at the site; and we know from experience that she fakes her freelancing. That's why the team added WiseGeek.com to their scan list. Here's our first – but probably not our last – nominee from that site: Paul Reed, exposed by our staff geologist as he was trying to explain "What Is Sonic Logging?" (and failing miserably). The post, unedited, is now ar WiseGEEK niche site AboutMechanics.com, for some unknown reason.

Fine Plywood for Dummy Cabinetmakers

edge of veneer core plywood

When you come right down to it, sometimes half an answer is worth less than no answer at all. Say you are completely ignorant of the word "tiger" – pretend you're a Martian who just arrived. Someone explains to you that a tiger is a cat, and points to the kitty in Grandma's lap. You're in for one heckuva surprise when you find out that tigers get up to six feet long and weigh more than 300 pounds! Well, it isn't tigers and we ain't Martians; but eHowian Rebecca Mecomber still only gave half an answer when HomeSteady asked "What Is Cabinet-Grade Plywood?"¹

Flood Prevention for Dummies

wetlands and flooding

Our research team here at the Antisocial Network pores over dozens of possible DotD nominees every day. One of the first steps in the nomination process is to categorize the particular form of dumbassery the writer expresses in the content, forms such as "failure to understand the damned question in the first pace." Well, at least that's reason we picked out Andrea Helaine and the piece at HomeSteady.com titled "How to Prevent Floods of Rivers."¹

Changing a Tire for the Dummy Cyclist

Spoons seem a little... flimsy for this maneuver

We like the old adage that "Sometimes, even a blind pig finds an acorn"; like it so much that we had a sign made up and posted in the break room. It's right next to the Ben Franklin quotation, "We are all born ignorant but one must work hard to remain stupid." When it comes to websites, eHow.com must have been one of those hard workers, which is why it (and other niche sites Leaf Group has moved eHow.com content to) remains a rich vein of dumbassery. Take, for instance, Janos Gal, who visited "How to Remove a Schwinn Bicycle Tire"¹ upon the site, which promptly moved it to Healthfully.com.

Platform Beds for Woodworking Dummies

platform bed frame showing cross braces

In the old days every carpenter or woodworker was taught a simple maxim: "Measure twice, cut once. We've even seen eHowians who think it's, "Measure three times..." (most eHowians aren't familiar with the word "thrice"). Be that as it may, one of the most important aspects of measurement is getting the measurements right in the first place. A second such aspect is knowing the real-world dimensions of lumber. Hint: a 2-by-4 does not actually measure two inches by four inches. Returning DotD Ruth de Jauregui (aka razzberry jam) failed both counts in "How to Make an Easy 2x6 Platform Bed"¹ at HomeSteady.com.

Coefficients and Subscripts for Chemistry Dummies

Coefficients and subscripts in a formula

Anyone out there remember The Car Guys? Tom and Ray Magliozzi? For a couple of decades, the Boston-based brothers had a weekly talk show on public radio called "Car Talk." The two (both of whom had BS degrees from M.I.T.) often poked fun at art history majors... and guess what? Today's DotD candidate actually has a PhD in art history (or so she claims: it's eHow.com, so who knows?)! We kinda wondered, though, just what Teresa J. Siskin was doing attempting to explain the "Difference Between a Coefficient and a Subscript" at Sciencing.com.

Troubleshooting Maytag Washers for Dummies

washing machine leaks

When it comes to doing research, our staffers tell us that citing oneself as an authority on a topic doesn't always fly. Just because a freelancer has already published on a topic – especially without benefit of peer review – doesn't mean that the previous work is worth reading. Take, for instance, eHowian freelancer Jennifer Blair: that BA in "Writing Seminars" and those prior publications at other content farms don't mean she knows jack about "Problems With a Maytag Top-Loading Washing Machine"¹ (now at HomeSteady.com).

Adding Machine? Calculator? Dummy!

HP Scientific Calculator

We complain a lot about freelancers who pluck topics out of midair and "write" about them without proper background. Heck, that's what almost all our 1072 DotD awards to date have been for, when you come to it. But the internet is big, and people will always be greedy – so there are plenty more where those came from! Including, for what it's worth, "Difference Between Adding Machine & Calculator,"¹ which eHowian Keith Evans has up at Sciencing.com (shouldn't that be at Techwalla?).

Linear Equations for Algebra Dummies

Linear equation basics

In case you haven't been paying attention for the past twenty years or so, the U. S. education system is under fire for producing graduates who are too often innumerate¹ and/or scientifically illiterate. Based on some of the freelance rubbish published by their teachers, however, it seems that it isn't the kids' fault. Take a gander, for example, at the dumbassery in "How Are Linear Equations Used In Real Life?" We found it at Sciencing.com, where author Jessica Smith claims to have both an M. Ed. and certification in mathematics. We wonder if her résumé might be a bit inflated...

SPD Pedals for the Dummy Cyclist

Shimano SPD road pedal (one tension screw, Tammie)

Quite a few of the staffers here at the Antisocial Network are die-hard cyclists, which is why – besides the half dozen or so bikes in the staff bicycle rack – there's a commercial-quality spin bike in the communal gym. Last time we looked, the spin bike, the hybrids, and the mountain bikes all had Shimano SPD pedals. Only the oldest road bike (a 1994 Trek) had SPDs, though, the rest had Looks. At least our cyclists know the difference, which is a lot more than we can say for eHowian Tammie Painter, whose "How to Adjust Shimano SPD Pedals" lives at SportsRec.com these days thanks to Leaf Group's niching program.

Tectonic Plates for Dummies

Oceanic and continental plate comparison

Our staffers have a wide variety of interests, although we admit that most are science geeks or DIYers. To our science geeks, some of the most basic concepts of their fields are ingrained at a near-instinctive level. As a consequence, reading through freelance rubbish that violates those basic principles grates on their nerves, a sure-fire route to a nomination for DotD. Our geology type ran across a Sciencing.com post written by Doug Bennett, "Difference Between Continental & Oceanic Plates," and immediately submitted her nomination...

Adding Machine Instructions for Dummy Office Drones

If you wanted instructions on how to, say, drive a car with a manual transmission, you probably wouldn't be satisfied with detailed instructions about how to drive a specific vehicle. Let's say a 1974 VW Super Beetle (4 on the floor) vs. a 1961 Mercury Comet (3 on the tree). For one thing, shifting those two manual trannies is pretty different and for another, whatever you want to drive is probably different still (like the AN's fifth-generation Toyota Tacoma 6-speed). You want general instructions, not chapter and verse. Incompetent freelancers like eHow's Lacy Enderson never seem to figure out the "general" bit, as she amply demonstrated in "Adding Machine Instructions" at BizFluent.com.

Trim for a Dummy Cabinet Makeover

kitchen cabinet trim molding

We have to give the people at Leaf Group a little credit: they appear to have weeded out at least some of the dreck that was eHow.com when they were sliding posts into their new niches. How they decided which ones to delete, we don't know – it's unlikely that someone read them for accuracy, since the niches are about as full of crap as the original mother lode of misinformation. We were checking links not long ago and found that the source content for a DotD we handed out last year was gone, replaced by something equally inept. The author of that "cure worse than the disease"? Marissa Wilson, who managed to pump out "How to Add Trim to Cabinets"¹ at Hunker.com, even while knowing nothing at all about finish carpentry or cabinets...

Humid Houses for the Dummy Homeowner

sources of water vapor in a house

In the bad old days before the Google Panda update killed off content farms like AssociatedContent and Helium, many a self-appointed freelancer would post content at multiple sites. Sometimes, they'd just rework an article enough to defeat the plagiarism detector, others they'd "craft" new content. The ones who used the same name at several sites amuse our staffers most when they're caught posting dumbassery wherever they go. Take, for instance, Cindi Pearce, first spotted at Catalogs.com, who also wrote at eHow.com as shown by her HomeSteady.com post, "The Reasons for High Humidity in the Home."¹

Lead-Acid Batteries for Dummies

Jumper cable safe attachment

If there's anything that chaps the collective hiney of the Antisocial Network staffers more than freelancers with liberal arts degrees fumbling through technical and scientific discussions, it's people who (at least claim to) have science degrees and then botch scientific discussions. That being said, of course someone with a BS in Botany probably lacks the background to discuss quantum entanglement, while a theoretical physicist probably can't give chapter and verse on the uptake of nutrients in vascular plants. Both, however, should know basic science... unlike eHowian Stephanie Chandler, who forgot some simple chemistry in "What Are the Dangers of Exposure to Lead Acid Battery Gas?"¹ at ItStillRuns.com.

Making a Magnet for Dummies

nail electromagnet

We see a lot of interesting takes on all manner of subjects here at the Antisocial Network. Some of them are clearly written by people who've walked the walk and can now talk the talk. Those aren't candidates for the DotD award, mostly because they weren't written by dumbasses. On the other hand, however, there are the posts that our staffers recognize – sometimes within a few words – were written from a position of ignorance. The Kendra Dahlstrom post "How to Magnetize Metal," now appearing at SFGate.com, fits quite neatly in that second category...

Geothermal Energy for Dummies

simple geothermal system

For some weird reason, all the Leaf Group niche sites are offline today, so we've dug into our (lengthy) file of DotD candidates to find something from another fact -lite or -free website. Fortunately, that's not very hard when there's still content available at EzineArticles.com, content like the rubbish published by Mahfuza Ferdausi Urpa that he called "What Secrets Are Hidden in Our Planet About Geothermal History?"

Planes and Solids, a Dummy Comparison

Common solid shapes

Back in late 2011 when Google changed its algorithm to lower the search placement of "low-quality"¹ content, most of the content farms immediately felt the impact of the Panda update. Many folded entirely within a few months, but eHow.com – the poster child for low quality – soldiered on. The parent company, rebranded as Leaf Group, is now parceling eHow content out to niche sites, but much of the rubbish remains. Take, for instance, the post "How to Calculate Volume" by Julie Richards, which now resides at Sciencing.com. Take it, please...

The Water Cycle for Dummies

Lightning bolt

Every once in a while our researchers run across content-farm content that just plain flabbergasts them; something that just has to be shared with the whole staff. Today's DotD candidate is just such a post: in our first staff meeting of the year the team voted overwhelmingly to present Kienne Pisano of HubPages.com (where she calls herself Newton's Rival – how's that for self-aggrandizing!) for her treatise on "How lightning and rain are created!"¹ [exclamation point in original]. Let's just say, "Wow..."

Dog-Ears for Dummy Fence Builders

No, Jane, they're not "curved."

No matter how many times we say it, this bears repeating: You don't want how-to instructions written by a "never-done-it." That's one of the chief reasons that the quickly disappearing website eHow.com¹ has long been the laughingstock of people who can say, "Yeah, I've done that." The folks who've never done it usually expose themselves through ignorance of terminology, unfamiliarity with the process and tools, or both. Take, for instance, "Jane Smith" (yeah, sure...) and the Hunker.com article she posted called "How to Build a Dog-Ear Fence."²