Volcanology for Freelancing Dummies

 

subduction zone graphic

Every once in a while we ask one of the interns to choose an article, sort of at random, from HubPages.com and perform a fact check on the content. That's because, although eHow.com dumped vast quantities of bullshit on the internet, [almost] everyone knows it's a hotbed of misinformation. HubPages, on the other hand, let people write long, involved posts that might impress the ignorant with their length, even though they weren't actually particularly accurate. Today's intern took a look at a post now appearing at the HubPages niche site Owlcation.com (even though it was originally published in 2012); "How Does a Volcano Form?" uploaded by José Juan Gutierrez.

Volcanoes for Dummies (Again)

volcanoes at spreading center

While the people at Leaf Group were busy moving most of the old eHow.com articles into niches, the people at HubPages.com were apparently up to the same trick. We guess they bought the same SEO study... Whatever the case, they apparently were no more careful about getting it right than the Leafies were. We say that because we found another RickRidesHorses post at Owlcation.com (a HubPages niche), and "What Causes a Volcano to Erupt?" is pretty much as doofus as was his explanation of earthquakes...

Mountain-Building for Dummies (Tectonics Week 7)

Pretty mountains

Tectonics week wouldn't be complete without a visit to HubPages.com, perhaps the biggest remaining content farm besides the Demand Media empire. So that's where our staff geologist goes today, to the hub of one Livingsta A, a "data assurance officer" (according to LinkedIn) who claims to have a physics degree. Uhuh... Livingsta treated us all to her version of tectonics in the marvelous content she called "Types and How Mountains are Formed – For kids" (now at Owlcation.com). We repeat: uhuh...

Liv (may we call you Liv?) opens by telling us that

Science Factoids for Dummies

Schematic of Earth's layers

The successful freelancer at a content farm like HubPages.com reworded source material at a furious rate; often dumping out several related "hubs" in a day, all connected by similar titles and topics. The problem with this methodology was, of course, that the freelancer was merely rewording material about which he or she knew little or nothing the day before and, in the process, often made a helluva mess of specific facts. Here's a prime example, one we found this morning with just a few minute's trolling through the bazillions of hubs. It comes to us courtesy of livingsta, a Hubbie who claims to be a physicist, but probably isn't. Come see some of her bullshit from the article "Planet Earth for Kids - Shape and layers of the Earth" at the Hubpages niche site, Owlcation.com.

Acronyms for Dummies

Radar gun

An interesting factoid, for those of you who weren't already aware, is that the "experts" at Demand Media (now known as Leaf Group, parent company of a bunch of niches filled with eHow content) aren't allowed to cite wikipedia.com, the web encyclopedia, as an reference. That's because the website isn't "an authority," the same reason lots of high school teachers don't allow its use for students writing term papers.

In reality, Wikipedia is usually right, especially about matters of fact, as compared to matters of opinion. When it comes to being wrong about matters of fact, you need a greedy freelancer; someone like Joan Whetzel of HubPages.com (and Leaf Group, for that matter). Joan's the one who penned the Owlcation.com article she calls "Speed Measuring Instruments" that contains this juicy bit of misinformation: