Light Socket Repair for Dummies

This is a light socket, Tony

One of the greatest failings of eHow.com – besides the obvious fallacy of their allowing "communications" and English Lit grads to write about fluid dynamics or remodeling garages – was allowing those contributors to decide for themselves what anonymous web-searchers meant by the phrases they typed into Google. Worse, the site's "checkers" (the vaunted content editors) rarely, if ever, disagreed with the contributors. Consequently, a lot of dreck made it onto the site. We're talking about stuff like "How to Fix a Broken Light Socket," an Anthony Smith post that now lives at HomeSteady.com.

Garages and Garage Doors for Dummies

Garage design ideas

We spend a lot of time at the many former eHow websites, mainly because they're target-rich environments where (in theory) the content is on-point and isn't thinly-disguised advertising spun into English by greed-sucking pigs who aren't particularly familiar with that language. Then again, there are the other, smaller content farms where all of the above comes into play. We usually ignore them. Every once in a while, though, we reach out for their special flavor of dumbassery... and that's why we're here today: meet Lora Davis of EzineArticles.com and her post, "Garage Door Designs."

Quartz Countertops for Dummies

Closing a seam in a quartz countertop

Based on the sort of posts our research staff turns up, one of the most prolific veins of freelance dumbassery seems to lie at the intersection of science and home decor. Whether it's well-meaning or not, the puff pieces pounded out by "decorators" and "decorating consultants" are a veritable font of misinformation. Take, for example, the article titled "Quartz Countertop"¹ (just one?), posted to LoveToKnow.com by first-time DotD Donna Sundblad.

GPS for Complete Dummies

basics of GPS

Content farms of the internet break down into two different families: in the sites such as HubPages.com, freelancers post about anything. At the other type of sites, such as the eHow.com niches, freelancers choose from a list of topics. We harvest most of our DotD nominees from the second group, which might lead one to think that freelancers at HubPages (or InfoBarrel, WritEdge, etc.) only write on topics about which they're knowledgeable. One would be wrong, as is ably demonstrated by M. Dee Dubroff (Marjorie Dorfman) from Catalogs.com in her post, "What Is GPS?"

Water Rights for the Dummy Property Owner

There's more to water rights than watering your lawn...

There are many corners of the internet where our researchers rarely go: with the exception of celebrity and sports news, just about any search will turn up dozens of fake websites on page two of the results; all based in Asia and all trying to sell you some product only vaguely related to your search term. Yuck: those sites suck; big time. They also usually avoid WritEdge.com, mostly because it hurts their eyes to try to avoid all the popups, ads, popunders, and other annoyances the owners of Harlow-McGaw smear all over the page. But we digress... One researcher accidentally stopped by WritEdge.com not long ago, and brought "Water Rights – What You Might Want to Know,"¹ by Lori Palermo, to the nomination table. It won...

Flagstone, the Clueless Version

These flagstones are slate, not sandstone

For some reason that no one here at the Antisocial network understands, a surprising number of self-appointed freelancers seem to be confused by the difference between the specific and the general. It happens a lot when people start writing about topics they aren't familiar with, especially if the topic is even the least bit "technical." Take today's DotD nominee, for example: Sharon Bellissimo of EzineArticles.com decided to share her own "Facts about Flagstone" with her readers. Too bad she didn't know anything before she started...

Geophysical Exploration for Dummies

Geophysical exploration for gems

The science types on our staff are understandably disappointed by scientific illiteracy, but realize that not everyone's brain is wired the way theirs are. What they find repugnant, as opposed to disappointing, is the mess the scientifically illiterate make of science facts while freelancing. There is, believe it or not, worse: the freelancer who spins scientific content but is too scientifically illiterate to proofread it. Today's example comes from the fine folks at EzineArticles.com, where someone claiming to be named John M. Milton submitted the rubbish titled "Exploration of Precious Stones by Means of Geophysical Methods."

Get some Amethyst, Dummies!

Amethyst crystals

Our science team members run across more than a few people who ascribe magical powers to crystals during their research. We tend to avoid that content like the plague, mainly because we're not in the habit of trying to debunk metaphysical claims, though we're perfectly happy to point out a writer's innate dumbassery whenever they start making errors of fact. Sometimes, people are just trying to sell their products – that seems to be the case with Eric Jhonson [sic] of DailyTwoCents.com, who's penned a series of articles about gemstones that are... somewhat suspect. Given that Jhonson's bio says he's "an accomplished writer," we figured anything he says is fair game,  so we're taking on "Amethyst Gemstone: All That You Ever Wanted to Know."¹ Does Eric elucidate? or just advertise his goods on some auction site called LiquidationChannel.com?

Doing Your Own Tune-ups for Dummies

It's a pretty safe bet those aren't Lori's hands...

It's finally Saturday. We were already tired of looking at stupid car advice by Wednesday; but the show must go on. So far, we've found a wealth of automotive dumbassery over at eHow and yesterday managed to find something stupid HubPages hadn't hidden (yet), so today we went further afield. Although stupid and sometimes dangerous content has been the main focus of Cars Week, today we focus on a freelancer who apparently wanted to make money just by throwing random terms at the page. He's Lori Palermo (yes, Lori's profile refers to Lori as "he") from WritEdge.com, who gifted the universe of automotive DIYers with "Basic Car Tune Up -- Doing It Yourself."¹

Choosing a Pipe Wrench for Dummies

Pipe wrench jaws

Any home-repair task involving plumbing, at least beyond basic faucet repair or swapping out shower heads, will require the use of a pipe wrench. That's why a version of this tool shows up in just about every DIYer's home toolkit once he or she gets past the hammer-plus-pliers-plus-cordless drill stage. It's probably why InfoBarrel.com's Robert VanNorden shared his thoughts about one brand of these tools in his post "The Best Pipe Wrenches Money Can Buy Online";¹ essentially a thinly-disguised set of links to Amazon.com padded out with some lousy text to meet the site's minimum word count. Our first question, of course, was, "Are there better wrenches you can't buy online?"

Anyway, we're not here to argue with VanNorden's assertion that the Ridgid brand of pipe wrenches is simply the best, or even that a pro could benefit from the significant weight advantage of the brand's aluminum wrenches as opposed to cast iron. We're pretty sure they beat the cheap house-brand wrenches you can get at Lowe's or HomeDepot (not to mention that Chinese-made Tekton brand Amazon keeps trying to push on us whenever we buy tools). No, we're here to wonder why someone who claims to be both "a writer" and a "retired heating contractor" does so bad a job of describing this tool. Says Robert,

Roofs for Dummies

Rooftop patio

We've seen some pretty interesting do-it-yourself projects featured on the internet over the years we've been harpooning freelancing fools. We've found carpentry projects where the instructions don't match the parts list, building projects that don't build what they say they will, even instructions that are just plain wrong. It's fairly rare that we find a writeup on a DIY project that is, to be frank, dangerously stupid; but they're out there, just like the free-flowing river of candidates for the Darwin Award. As evidence, submitted for your consideration is Pedro de Almedia of InfoBarrel.com, who shares with the world his instructions for "How to Install Paving Stones on the Roof of Your House."¹

Spin Classes for Dummy Fitness Buffs

Spin class

We occasionally get the impression here at the Antisocial Network that as much as half the posts freelancers submit to content farms have been placed there for the one purpose only, and that's  for inserting an affiliate link or advertising for a business. What we find strange, and sometimes more than a bit amusing, is that many of the more avaricious posters use the same text at several sites; running it through a spinning algorithm to make it look "different" to search engines. That's probably what SpinningShoes did over at Seekyt.com in the post "Advantages of Using Spinning Shoes For Spin Bike Classes." It's more than a little amusing that this worthy uses a spinning algorithm to write (and we use the word loosely) about spinning classes...

So, you are probably thinking, just where did we get the idea that this particular content might be spun? Well, just take a look at what it says: how else would you get twisted verbiage like

Bay Windows for Utter Dummies (Seekyt Week 5)

Bay window... on a bathroom???

Among the many things we never intend to do is put a big-ass window in our bathroom. Oh, sure, if we lived alone in an isolated house that no one could approach because of the 12-foot wall around the property and the killer guard dogs that roam the grounds. Such delicacy, however, is apparently not in the makeup of Seekyt's manojjh (Manoj Jha), apparently an employee of a large India-based window company. No, Manoj finds the idea completely acceptable, and even gives explicit... well, not really... instructions in "How To Install A Bay Window In Your Bathroom?" (the question mark is Manoj's, not ours).

As is so often the case at Seekyt (and elsewhere), Manoj's "instructions" are rather inane. He begins by telling you to

Gibberish for Dummies (Seekyt Week 3)

Gastrointestinal tract

What kind of internet content would be worse than advertising disguised as (bad) advice? We asked ourselves that question quite some time ago and weren't really sure there was something worse. At least not until we ran into some Seekyt garbage called "How to get free motions? Some advice for staying fit and healthy," posted by a member calling himself rakhi143 (we call him Rakhi). After we read that one, we were pretty sure that gibberish written only for the purposes of self-promotion is just a little worse.

Why self-promotion? Because Rakhi has four links with his Seekyt referral code in the post, and a quick survey of his profile shows that he uses the same first paragraph – with three referral links – for every post. We might have let him get away with that sort of bullshit if his content were... coherent. But it's not. Take a gander at this hot mess:

Band Saws for the Dummy Woodworker (Seekyt Week 2)

Floor-standing band saw

An acquaintance tells us that at a well-known review site, now defunct, the best way to make money was to write about "anything with a cord." An unfortunate side effect was that this resulted in boatloads of fake reviews of appliances (especially vacuum cleaners), electronics and power tools. Today's dumbass is a Seekyt.com contributor who apparently figured out the same: meet Jennie Trotters (aka jennietrotters), seen here insulting the intelligence of the average tool user with a piece she called "Types and Uses of Band Saws."¹

In just a few days of looking through Seekyt's content, we determined that much of the site's content is thinly disguised advertisement for Australian or British companies, as is the case in Jennie's post. Why anyone would hire a total dumbass to write bad copy about his business is beyond our ken, however. If you sold band saws, would you want someone telling your potential customers bullshit like

Maintenance for the Dummy Car Owner

troubleshooting your car

There are plenty of dummies out there who once hoped to cash in big on the crap they were posting at content farms: trust us, we know. Some content farms are... what, more dumbass? than others? while some sites make it easier to find the rubbish their members write. Seekyt.com is a great place to catch dumbasses at work, except that it's slow and horribly indexed. Still, our crack research staff here at the Antisocial Network were able to turn up a few morons for our Seekyt week. We'll start with Nora G. Hart (noraghart, very likely not her real name), seen here attempting to provide automotive maintenance tips in "Warning: Your Car is Trying to Tell You Something."

Attic Insulation for Dummies

Attic insulation

If there's anything the staff of the Antisocial Network find more irritating than freelance bullshit, it's spun freelance bullshit. It's bad enough when money-grubbing halfwits regurgitate randomly connected factoids, pretending to be knowledgeable; it's quite another to take someone else's words and spin them into unrecognizable twaddle. Take, for instance, the content posted by InfoBarrel.com's clickstop, allegedly a primer on "Types of Attic Insulation" (an Iowa-based company named Clickstop.com sells insulation – you be the judge). Clickstop tells us right up front that

General Plumbing for Dummy Homeowners

Water pipe spaghetti...

Perhaps the only thing worse than a freelancer writing for pennies is a fake freelancer pretending to give advice while shilling for his or her company. We're thinking of someone like Brianna W over at seekyt.com, whose entire portfolio consists of one badly-written article she called "Get to Know the Basics of Home Plumbing Systems." It turns out that Brianna only presented all this pseudo-knowledgeable faux-factation to advertise for her favourite plumbing company in Melbourne, Australia. 

Of course, we here at the Antisocial Network couldn't let her get away with bullshit like that, especially when her concept of the "basics of home plumbing systems" is written at the level of a preschooler's board book – and we're not only talking knowledge, we're talking writing. Oz is an English-speaking country, so Bri deserves our scorn for crap like this: