Cheap Carports Done by Dummies

The roof isn't a tarp, Carole...

In the early days of eHow.com the site's "contributors" weren't required to provide supporting references for their posts, which may explain why somewhere around 2011 DMS¹ suddenly decided to make them do so. That's probably because some of the most crapalicious of the content was cobbled together by English and journalism students who basically spitballed ideas. Take, for instance, the question submitted by some poor schmuck, "How to Build a Cheap Carport,"² which was answered (if you can call it that) by "real estate journalist" Carole Ellis, aka Carole Vansickle.

Filing Late Taxes for Dummies

It's eight months until the next scheduled income tax day (April 15th, that is) and already the natives are getting restless in the AN bullpen. They're not restless because of taxes, though; they're restless because of bogus advice about taxes. Yup: one of them was tracking down an old award recipient and came across yet more screwed-up tax advice hiding in plain sight at Sapling.com, one of the niche sites where Leaf Group dumps old eHow.com content. We now present Pam McCallum and her post, "Can I File Two Years of Taxes at One Time?"

Crude Oil Prices for Dummies

sample crude oil price chart

It can be a bit scary looking for financial information, particularly if you don't really understand what it is you're looking for. That's why we strongly suggest that you find a reliable, authoritative source for the information you seek, not to mention a source that has a solid grounding in the basics. We guess, however, that you probably don't want to turn to advice from content farms like eHow.com... or their daughter site, Sapling.com. That's where we found Jerusha Hardman and her post, "How to Track the Price of Crude Oil." It was originally published at eHow under the handle Si Kingston, but – for now, anyway – we'll work under the assumption that the author is Hardman and correct it later if needed.

A Cheap Gazebo for Dummies

Southwestern ramada

For some reason, you can find a wealth of "how-to" construction and woodworking advice in the Leaf Group niche site Sapling.com ("A money site for people who don't do money good"; which suggests to us that their grammatical standards aren't top-of-the-line). The majority, if not all, of them are for "How to...Cheap..."; which is exactly what caused our staffer to take a look at the Heidi Cardenas post "How to Make a Small Cheap Backyard Gazebo." Despite Cardenas' claim of expertise in home improvement, it was pretty lame...

Late Tax Filing for Dummies

IRS late filing application

When tax time comes around, we here at the Antisocial Network tend to be leery of the "community help" forums at places like TurboTax, mainly because we know just how clueless a lot of the people offering  that "help" are in real life. We'd rather go to the IRS website or get help from the likes of J. K. Lasser, if the truth be told. After all, we definitely wouldn't want to find ourselves in trouble for taking "tax advice" from the likes of Denise Caldwell (now attributed to Jerusha Hardman) at least based on her Sapling.com article, "Can I Wait and File Taxes Next Year?"

A Dummy's Guide to the World's Worst Deck Plans

A cheap deck?

There are lots of hard-earned lessons our staffers are more than happy to share with readers, but today they would like to concentrate on two of them. The first is something you should already have learned for yourself: "You get what you pay for." The second? Well, that's pretty much why we identify some moronic freelancer every day to be our daily dumbass: "You can't trust a freelancer writing at a content farm." With that said, then, let's see what Carole Ellis (aka Carole Vansickle) has to say in the Sapling.com post, "How to Build a Cheap Deck."

Cupboard Doors for Dummies

louvered shutters used for cabinet doors

If you've ever attempted to build a door – any door, to fit any opening anywhere – you quickly learned that it's not as simple as just sticking up a piece of wood with some hinges and calling it a day. Based, however, on his instructions for one such task, it's pretty obvious that eHowian Guy Gardner is not among those who've ever taken on that particular task. If you need evidence, just take a look at his Sapling.com post, "How do I Make Cheap Cupboard Doors for a Bookcase?" Sapling.com? Really?

Cheap Garages, the Dummy Version

This is an A-frame, Judi

At least here in North America, most people who own A) their own home and B) own a car, park that car in a garage. Well, they do if the garage isn't so full of stuff that they can't get the car in. Whatever the case, if you don't have a garage and want to build one, you'll naturally be interested in "How to Build Your Own Garage for Cheap." If so, we certainly advise that you studiously avoid the post on the topic by Judi Light Hopson at Sapling.com.

A Cheap Dog Pen for Dummies

A temporary solution: no posts set in concrete!

Our staffers have been watching with interest as the renamed Demand Media Studios – now "Leaf Group" – has frantically shoved its eHow.com content into various niches. It makes sense that articles about home improvements have moved to HomeSteady and Hunker (the latter's apparently a riff on "hunker down"), but some of the choices are a little puzzling. Take "How to Make a Cheap Dog Pen," a post by Laurie Rappeport at Sapling.com. Sapling? about "growing your money"? It must be because of the word "cheap" in the title.

Welfare Checks for Dog-Whistling Dummies

Police officer making welfare check

Are you familiar with the term "dog-whistle"? It's sometimes also known as a code word, something that most people will find innocuous while the intended audience "knows exactly what you're talking about." Donald Trump is often accused – correctly, we suspect – of using dog-whistles in those rally speeches. One such politically loaded phrase, dating from the Reagan era, is "welfare check"; and eHowian William McFadden (aka Artesia Peluso? aka Jennifer vanBaren?) jumped right on that dog's back in the Sapling.com article "What Is a Welfare Check?"¹

401K Distributions for Dummies

Cashing out from your 401K

Back in your grandpa's day, people worked for the same company all their lives and retired with something called a "pension." You millennials may have never heard of a pension, and it's pretty likely you won't ever see one (unless you work for a governmental agency). Beginning in the '80s or so, employees have been much more likely to save cash for retirement in a self-directed plan like a 401K. But what happens to that money when someone reaches retirement age? You can be pretty sure that Alibaster Smith (fake name, no?) doesn't know, based on his answer to "How Is a 401K Paid After Retirement?"¹ for Leaf Group's Sapling.com.

1099 Tax Forms for Dummies

Form 1099-MISC

The sometimes stupid, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally hilariously stupid website eHow.com is infamous for the moronic answers to inane question its contributors have provided over the years. We at the Antisocial Network are well aware that the Panda update to Google's algorithm was created precisely to reduce the page rank of content like that found at eHow.com. If you've ever wondered why, all you need to do is wander around the site for an hour or two. Today, for instance, we began with a search for the word "logarithm" and, in just four random jumps, ended up at a piece by Larry Parr entitled "How to Print a 1099 Tax Form off the Computer" (it now lives at Leaf niche Sapling.com).