Belt Sanders for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCX

Belt sander

We don't know about you, but we prefer that our questions not be answered by people who, before they googled the topic, were every bit as ignorant as we are... yet that appears to have long been the model by which internet content farms have operated. Be honest, OK? Would you rather have a dentist explaining the effects of plaque than a freelance web designer? a physicist detailing the different flavors of quarks than an out-of-work journalism grad? Sure you would! Instead of depending on some stranger to look it up, if you look it up yourself you can decide what's important to know and what's not. That, unfortunately, is not where WiseGEEK.com shines. No, their freelancers are prone to pretense about their knowledge; just like R. Kayne¹ did in attempting to answer the question, "What is a Belt Sander?" for niche site HomeQuestionsAnswered.com.

Sump Pits for Dummies

Sump pit and pump

We've always been amused by the verbal gyrations performed by freelancers trying to avoid being nailed for plagiarism at sites like eHow and WiseGEEK, which punished those they caught in the sin. The more crafty plagiarizers were quite fond of the thesaurus; a handy tool but (in out opinion) no substitute for knowledge. Having "amokked" in the thesaurus is often a dead giveaway that the author of a content farm post had to look the topic up at Wikipedia (or another website) and reword whatever appeared there. Combined with other shortcomings, that's how our staffer picked up on Mary McMahon and her WiseGEEK.com post, "What Is a Sump Pit?" now moved to a new niche called HomeQuestionsAnswered.com (snort!).

Dowel Joints for Dummies

Different dowel joint configurations

One of the more important criteria the Antisocial Network staffers use to identify DotD candidates is a failure to differentiate between important and unimportant facts in a content-farm post. Such failure is most common in websites with "target" content sizes, such as eHow.com's 300-500 word SEO-friendly length. Our staffers have noticed that WiseGEEK.com writers seem to aim for a similar word count, hence their reliance on "factoids" instead of useful information. Such is the case of "What is a Dowel Joint," posted to the niche site InfoBloom.com (and then moved to HomeQuestionsAnswered)  by one A. Leverkuhn.