The Geology of Floor Tile for Dummies

Travertine floor tiles

Occasionally our research staffers run across otherwise perfectly good. information... well, sometimes it's just acceptable information – that's marred by a glaring factual error. There's not enough there to build a complete DotD article, but the bogus factoids start to stick in one's metaphorical craw. Today, we thought maybe we'd flush out some of the dross that's built up, starting with a couple of utterly stupid statements about rocks made by people trying to look knowledgeable about their fields. Both are from TheSpruce.com, a niche website for home improvements that was formerly part of About.com.

Landforms and Erosion for Dummies

Water's relationship with landforms

It's not that difficult these days to write "research papers" at the fifth-grade level; at the eighth-grade level, in fact. After all, fifth- and eighth-graders do it all the time. We mean, all you need to do is google your topic and reword the first article you find on page two (page one makes it too easy for the teacher to catch you). Of course, if you have no idea what you're talking about, you might want to actually read the article you're rewording. That's how we caught eHowian Andrea Sigust, who contributed "How Does Erosion Affect Landforms?" at Sciencing.com.

Gazebos on Decks for the DIY Dummy

deck with gazebo

Most of the staffers here at the Antisocial Network can claim at least intermediate skills in some form of DIY. That may be why, when one of them runs across what's supposed to be a "how-to" article that isn't, they get a little  peeved. It's one thing when a freelancer botches the instructions out of laziness and/or ignorance, it's quite another when the freelancer just punts. Today's punter is one Bryce Hammons (so-called "info guru" at Catalogs.com), whom we caught drop-kicking "How to build decks with gazebos" (the site now attributes his crap to "Catalogs Editorial Staff," but it's all Bryce's).

Sloping Privacy Fences for Dummies

That's not a pre-assembled panel, Edwin.

Many of the freelancers we run across in our research seem to suffer from a version of tunnel vision. This seems to be especially true of eHow.com posts, most of which are now in the Leaf Group family of niches. Perhaps the freelancer has a brief experience with the topic, more likely the freelancer has researched a tangentially related topic. Whatever the case, their tunnel vision renders them incapable of actually being helpful to a reader. Take the case of eHowian Edwin Thomas, who tackled "How to Build a Wooden Privacy Fence on a Slope" for HomeSteady.com.

River Levees for the Urban Planning Dummy

Natural levee formation

We just happened to notice that it had been months since the last time we checked up on our most-decorated dumbass, the pride of Katy, Joan Whetzel. It's not that Joan is absent from the web, it's just that the competition for this coveted award is so fierce. Not. Whatever the case, it took exactly one click on her profile at HubPages.com to come up with more misinterpreted factoids and mangled prose in the form of "River Levees and Flood Control."¹

LVL for Dummy Builders

joist hangers

We think that it's a pretty safe bet that when you find a freelancer giving the wrong definition for a term in the first sentence of the post, you've found a live DotD candidate. Here's a good recipe: take one "motivational speaker" with an AA in English and assign him to write about construction techniques... that's what we found in the case of eHow.com's Timothy Burns and "How to Use Joist Hangers on LVL" at the the mother site.

Trenches and Ditches for Dummies

Backfilling a small trench

As the Antisocial Network's staffers roam the internet in search of people being stupid for money (in print, anyway), they occasionally run across content so utterly clueless that they're taken aback. That's exactly what happened when one of the research team members encountered "How to Shore a Trench" at the Leaf Group niche site HomeSteady.com. It took just seconds to realize that freelancer Rachel Lucio was utterly ignorant of her supposed topic when she tried to "write to the title" for eHow.com.

Contours for Utter Dummies

We don't think this is topography, Felicia

Our research staffers have been at this game long enough that some of them can identify a DotD candidate from the first sentence of a freelanced article. That's almost always true at sites like WritEdge and HubPages, where members just dump crap on the site willy-nilly. Sadly, it's also pretty true of sites with "editors"; sites such as eHow.com and WiseGEEK.com. After all, if the editors don't know jack, how can they correct factual errors? Which brings us to today's nominee, WiseGEEK writer Felicia Dye (and editor Heather Bailey), who collaborated in "What are Contour Lines?" which we found at AlltheScience.com.

Pumice and Perlite for Dummy Gardeners

Pumice (red) and perlite (white)

One of the mot common shortcomings of self-appointed "freelancer journalists"; at least according to our research staff, seems to be a sort of intellectual laziness. The freelancer may have a PhD (although in a much different field) or a Masters degree (ditto), but makes the assumption that he or she already knows what's necessary to write the article. You know what they say about "assume," right? It's what happened to SFGate.com's Janet Bayer when she tried to explain the difference in "Perlite vs. Pumice" (Leaf Grooup stripped out her byline, but the words are still Bayer's).

Gears for the Cycling Dummy... Again

bicycle gear combinations

Remember the old joke about the patient who tells his doctor, "Doc, it hurts when I do this"? And the medic says, "Well, stop doing it"? We decided to take a day off from the Leaf Group/eHow.com family and really put a hurt on our collective brain by visiting EzineArticles.com. That venue is where we encountered Barbara Greene. Barb cranked out 43 sports-related articles at Ezine (11 of which included the word "venue" in the title). If they're all as bogus as "Tips On How To Use Bicycle Gears Efficiently For A Better And Faster Ride," then Barbie has some 'splainin' to do...

Linear Feet for Dummies (Yet Again!)

The linear (running) foot

If the truth be told, we've lost count of how many times we've featured eHow.com contributors who seem confused by the concept of linear measure (it's at least five). No matter how many times we try to tell these bozos that the term "linear feet" (or yards or meters) is dependent on the width of the product, they seem to almost always think that some halfwit wants to know some sort of conversion factor. Guess who's the halfwit, though, in the Stephen Lilley article "How to Calculate Linear Feet With Dimensions"¹ (it's at HomeSteady.com, if anyone cares).

Excel Macros for Dummies

Recording an Excel macro

From time to time our research team members run across posts that are so transparently bogus that they don't even rate a second glance. Take, for instance – and by "take," we mean "take to the trash" – eHow.com's Stephanie Ellen (sometimes known as S. Deviant) and her post, "How to Automate an Excel Spreadsheet." This post, now at ItStillWorks.com, is so... so... we don't know what! that it should have been published at a website that doesn't have "editors¹"!

Republican Politics for Dummies

Ivanka Trump for vice president?

While we don't say so very often, most of the staffers at the Antisocial Network are convinced that, if you want to hear something really stupid, you just need to ask people political questions. That probably goes double for asking people about the politics of a different country: most Americans don't comprehend the parliamentary system of government: how do they think the Canadian PM is elected? Today's DotD falls under that category: he's a Pakistani who calls himself Emge, and he offered up this cogent political analysis at DailyTwoCents.com: "Ivanka Trump as running mate?"¹

Crystals for Total Dummies

crystal lattice

We'll be honest: we don't know if the intersection of scientists and (erotic) romance authors is very large. We can say, however, that we know of one such author who definitely doesn't also live in the universe of scientists: she's eHowian Regina Paul, and her "area of inexpertise" today is mineralogy. Yep, Paul attempted to explain "What are Crystals Made Of?" for Sciencing.com and, let's just say, she didn't do a particularly good job...

Soil Erosion for Dummies

Contour plowing and planting to reduce soil erosion

Here at the Antisocial Network, we've long since given up on expecting freelancing J-school¹ graduates to show any honesty at all about what they do and do not know, at least when it comes to the eHow.com family of sites. It seems that they assume that their "superior" research skills allow them to address any topic succinctly. Well, no, that's not true; as is proven by J-school grad Lee Morgan. We found Lee at Hunker.com, where he tried to explain "Five Factors that Affect Soil Erosion."²

Calculating Wing Lift, the Dummy Version

Lift calculation variables

Our research team members all figured out long ago that it's easy to identify freelancers writing well outside the fields in which they've been trained. Let's say, for instance, someone has an education degree (from a diploma mill, no less) and tries to explain a fairly complex problem in aeronautical engineering. It'll be tough to get it right if you don't understand it in the first place, right? Well, that's exactly what happened when Sciencing.com's Melanie Fleury tried to tell her readers "How to Calculate Wing Lift."

Bush Hogs for Dummies

Perhaps the greatest weakness of Demand Media's eHow.com model was that the founders fervently believed that any writer could address any topic with a little research. Well, they probably realize that was utter bull, but didn't care because their way could make them boatloads of bucks. Whatever the reason, however, the website was infamous for the failure of its writers to connect to reality. That's what happened when Glenda Taylor (also known as Glyn Sheridan) tried to explain "How Does a Tractor Work With a Bush Hog?"; now available at CareerTrend.com.¹

Birdhouse Construction for Dummies

A basic birdhouse plan

When it comes to simple woodworking projects, it's pretty likely that the first project many a pre-teen tackles is building a birdhouse. Lots of birdhouse plans are simple, involving only a few cuts from a board or boards. Having good pictures is most helpful, but if you can't have pictures, then you'd better be very good at writing descriptions of the steps. In "How to Make a Bird's Nesting Box" at eHow.com, contributor Jessica Reed does a pretty lousy job of those descriptions...

Trigonometry for Dummy Carpenters

basic trigonometric functions

Today's DotD nomination is a little different from the normal post in the Leaf Group family of niche sites. The topic is pretty generic, the subject is pretty much wide open – "How to Use Trigonometry in Carpentry" – and it sort of looks as if eHowian Ezmeralda Lee got much of what she tried to say correct. In this case, however, we're looking at the presentation of the Lee's information, because between Ez and her CE (probably another J-school grad jonesing for pennies), this so-called answer is well-nigh worthless.

Bicycle Gears for Dummies

Cargo bike

Our research team members go about their business in different ways: some stick to a group of topics, some stick to a group of sites, and a few follow serial dumbass freelancers from site to site. Today's DotD nominee was turned up by a staffer who's a cyclist; a cyclist who was flabbergasted by the strange "information" published in the EzineArticles.com post "How to Use Bicycle Gears Properly." The flabbergasted part is because author Joan Bishop Denizot says she started her own bicycle company.

Tinning Speaker Wires for Dummies

tinning a wire with solder

No one here at the the Antisocial Network claims to be an audiophile, although a couple of us have remarked recently that they'd forgotten how "pure" vinyl sounds until they hooked up that old turntable again after a couple of decades. Be that as it may, the people here are at least aware enough to understand the significance of a search for "Copper Vs. Tinned Speaker Wire." That beats eHowian Rachel Lucio, who tried to address the same question at ItStillWorks.com.

Escarpments for Dummies

The Niagara Escarpment: escarpments are regional features, Mary

Whenever they run across the phrase "geologic formation" in a post, our research staffers flag it for the staff geologist. It's one of his pet peeves... it seems that 99 times out of a hundred (if not 9,999 items out of ten thousand) the term "formation" is misused. What people want to say is "rock formation" or "geologic feature," but they're too stupid to know the difference. Stupid like WiseGEEK.com writer Mary McMahon, sometimes known as S. E. Smith (and editor Kristen Osborne) who botched the term in "What is an Escarpment?"

IRS Payment Alternatives for Dummies

1040 ES voucher

When you come right down to it, the main reason most of our awardees are nominated in the first place is that they had no idea what they were talking about (but talked about it anyway). In many cases, this ignorance is sort of second-hand: the people asking questions knew so little about the topic they couldn't even formulate a proper question. The eHow.com model was to scrape search-engine queries for their contributors to "answer," a recipe for disaster given their stable of writers... writers like Pamela Gardapee, who tackled "How to Make IRS Payments" for PocketSense.com.¹

Insulating Recessed Lighting for Dummies

Recessed light cover for blown-in insulation

The research team members here at Antisocial Network headquarters see dozens (if not hundreds) if doofus freelance posts every day. It's hard, sometimes, to decide which of them is most deserving of the coveted DotD trophy, but when push comes to shove, babbling about a completely unfamiliar topic just to pick up a few bucks is about as good a criterion as any. By that, we mean some kindergarten aide telling us about home construction; e.g., Elizabeth Knoll, writing "How to Insulate Non IC Rated Recessed Lighting"¹ for Homesteady.com.

Southern Accents for Dummy Freelancers

Different Southern Dialects

The Antisocial Network's researchers come across some pretty cockamamie statements as they wander the 'net looking for freelance dumbassery. A lot of what they bring up at staff meetings bogus "facts," incorrect "instructions," the occasional idiotic conspiracy theory, and just plain old stupidity. We think today's DotD nominee falls in a couple of categories: it's mostly bogus facts, but it has a pretty strong stench of plain old stupidity. Feast your eyes, y'all, on the Edward Ngureco post at HubPages.com, "Accent and Dialect: Formation of Dialects - and Why Southerners Have Accents."

Linear Feet for Dummies, Again

Carpet is sold by the linear foot

We aren't really sure why, but the concept of "linear feet" seems to crop up with distressing regularity in the world of freelance dumbassery. Sure, the phrase might sound redundant, but with a little straightforward explanation, it becomes fairly easy to understand. The problem, as our staffers see it, is that the freelancers who write about it, like Kristen May of Hunker.com, don't understand it themselves. You can see May's confusion in the post, "What Is the Difference Between a Linear and a Square Foot?"

Hanging a Pool Table Light for Dummies

I don't see the extension cord, Lacy

The staffers at the Antisocial Network can be just as lazy as any unpaid interns (because that's essentially what they are?). In other words, once they've located a rich vein of dumbassery, they're likely to mine it for a while. One such vein is the work of veteran eHow,com contributor Lacy Enderson, whose work Leaf Group has spread across their niches. Now, there are six: here's Lacy's seventeenth contribution, from SportsRec.com (SportsRec? really?): "How to Install a Pool Table Light."

Circles for Dummy Geometry Students, Again

finding the center of a circle

We have a staffer who regularly checks our older DotD nominations for broken links or links that lead to "deprecated" pages. It seems that from time to time, the people at Leaf Group have a member of their stable of "experts" clean up older posts that someone (not us) has found wanting. Sadly, the reworked content can be no better than the original. Here's what happened when we checked Rachel Pancare's post on "How to Determine the Diameter of a Circle": we found a rework by Claire Gillespie that wasn't much better...

Logarithms for Dummies

Anatomy of a logarithm

Let's face it: some people can toss around the bull and get away with it, while some people are exposed almost immediately. For instance, we once heard a classic "little old lady" (4'-8" tall, 73 years old) explain that she bought "pee-tight" dresses. Ummm, yeah, she probably meant "petite." Be that as it may, she wasn't trying to explain petites, she was just talking about 'em. That's radically different from eHowian Anastasia Zoldak, who pretended to be informative in the Techwalla.com post "Uses of Logarithms in Computers." The jury is out on that...

Building a Drawer for Dummies

Typical joinery of drawers

When it comes to building your own storage, some tasks are easier than others. That's not to say that building the shell of a cabinet is "easy," it's just to say that doors and drawers require more exacting craftsmanship. If you've ever tried to build a drawer on your own, you already know that. If you haven't tried it, that most certainly puts you in the same class as HomeSteady.com writer Genae Valecia Hinesman. Hinesman proved her lack of qualifications when she penned "How to Construct a Drawer."¹