Copying Instructions for Dummies

Wiring inside a thermostat

The "contributors" to the website eHow often found themselves attempting to answer questions for which they had no background, knowledge, or experience. None of those, however, were of importance to the site: all you had to do, as far as the gatekeepers ("content editors") were concerned, was find an authoritative source and reword what you found there. The problem, of course, was that if you had no idea what you were talking about, how could you reword something? You'd probably find yourself in the same quandary as Cadence Johansen when she tried to explain "How to Wire a Digital Thermostat Without Using Batteries"¹ for HomeSteady.com

Like many an eHow "title," the question is pretty much ambiguous. Did the OQ want to know how to bypass the batteries of a thermostat and operate it on household current? Did the OQ even mean the thermostat for household HVAC? Did the OQ mean aa thermostat that operates off the HVAC system but has a battery backup? We'll never know, but Johansen's choice was to assume the OQ wanted to install a digital thermostat that was not battery-powered. There appear to be some of them available... but not many.
Whatever the case, Cadence found instructions for installing a digital thermostat somewhere (the site's defunct, be we found it at archive.org), and... well, she performed a standard eHow operation: copy it, reword it, and paste it. Cadence turned the eleven-step operation into 8 steps by simply omitting the hard stuff (apparently, what she didn't understand).

Oh, sure, Cadence was able to reword "turn off the power" and "turn on the power"; no problem. It's when she got to the part about taking the wires off the old thermostat and putting them on the new one. Here's what the source said:

"Label the existing wires. The old thermostat will have a letter identifying each wire. Attach a label (included with your new thermostat) to each wire that corresponds to the letter on the old thermostat. If no labels are provided, use masking tape... Connect the wires to the screw terminals, matching the masking-tape labels to the letters on the terminals. Also, consult the wiring diagram in the installation manual to make sure everything is properly hooked up. "

...and here's Johansen's version:

"Wrap a small piece of masking tape around each of the wires in the thermostat. Write the appropriate labels on each wire... Match the appropriate wires with the appropriate screw terminals in the digital thermostat."

Wait, what labels? What's appropriate? Does she even have the slightest idea what she's talking about (we know, rhetorical question...).  And then there's this set of instructions:

"Screw the mounting plate for the new digital thermostat to the wall with a screwdriver... Attach the base of the thermostat to the wall. The base should simply snap into place on the mounting plate."

No, Cadence, the base is the mounting plate!
We would pity anyone who tried to perform this task following the instructions our Dumbass of the Day published except for one thing: they should know better than to use eHow!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7905652_wire-digital-thermostat-using-batteries.html

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