Living Fence Posts for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXXVI

barbed wire in tree

Based on years of experience, our staffers firmly believe that there is no more dangerous freelancer than one who claims to be an expert... or is so expert that they head up some department at a content farm. We've already featured (eleven times!) one such self-declared expert who was formerly the "travel channel manager" at content farm Helium.com. Today's nominee, Gail Delaney, apparently fancies herself a horticulture expert, in part because she "has years of gardening experience" and edits gardening for "BellaOnline." Unfortunately, Gail didn't quite know how to address some poor shmuck's question, "How to Use Live Trees for Fence Posts."

Trees in Motion for Dummies

Predicted tree migration

Here at the Antisocial Network we like to say that we operate at the intersection of clueless questions and senseless answers. Nowhere is that locus more clear than in cases where a freelancer lacking the necessary knowledge attempts to answer someone's badly-worded question. Take, for instance the question, "How Do Trees Move?" and then inspect where it intersects with an attempt to answer it, an attempt written by Jacquelyn Jeanty for Sciencing.com.

Oaks for Dummies

Oak leaf and acorn

No matter how much complaining we hear about so-called "scientific jargon," we here at the Antisocial Network remain resolutely committed to accuracy in word choice when it comes to technical speech, oral or written. You may well understand what your significant other means by "doohickey" or  "thingamabob," but when a stranger is asking for a scientific answer it behooves you to be more circumspect in your word choice. It works both ways: take, for example. the schmuck who asked eHow, "How Many Types of Oak Trees Are There?" We think freelancer Rachelle Dragani could have given a far more definitive answer than the one she submitted to Sciencing.com.

Chloroplasts for Dummy Biology Students

Chloroplast anatomy

The geekier folks among the Antisocial Network staffers often find themselves aghast at the ignorance of the freelance writers they turn up in their searches, especially some of the J-school grads who ended up "contributing" to eHow. Of course, we don't know how many of them also contributed to other, now-defunct, content farms like AssociatedContent and Helium, but it's a safe bet some did. More's the pity, then that scientific illiterates like Sheri Lamb managed to get rubbish like "Why Are Chloroplasts So Important?"¹ published at sites like GardenGuides.com.

Gazebos on Decks for the DIY Dummy

deck with gazebo

Most of the staffers here at the Antisocial Network can claim at least intermediate skills in some form of DIY. That may be why, when one of them runs across what's supposed to be a "how-to" article that isn't, they get a little  peeved. It's one thing when a freelancer botches the instructions out of laziness and/or ignorance, it's quite another when the freelancer just punts. Today's punter is one Bryce Hammons (so-called "info guru" at Catalogs.com), whom we caught drop-kicking "How to build decks with gazebos" (the site now attributes his crap to "Catalogs Editorial Staff," but it's all Bryce's).

Fossil Shell Identification for Dummies

Symmetry of brachiopods compared to pelycepods (clams)

Somewhere in some introductory journalism class, wannabe "communications" students are apparently taught that, if you know nothing about a topic, you can CYA by throwing all manner of disconnected factoids on the page and walking away. That probably isn't really the case – we certainly hope educators are less laissez faire about the topic – but based on some of the output of people who've taken that career path, it sure looks like some of them got that advice! Today's DotD nominee falls squarely in that category: she's eHowian Karen S. Garvin, whose "How to Identify Shell Fossils"¹ at Sciencing.com tripped a staffer's bullcrap detector.

Oak Tree Root Systems for Dummies

A tree's root system

Although we definitely agree that "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing," we aren't sure whether we prefer that little bit to no knowledge at all. We have to admit that our opinion of the matter is colored by the vast numbers of clueless freelancers – many with liberal arts degrees – attempting to transmit scientific knowledge through the Leaf Group niche sites¹. The hallmarks of these scientific illiterates are their inability to use scientific terms and their misunderstanding of causality. Oh, enough of that. Here's today's DotD nominee, Lauren Miller, and her prize-winning post, "The Root Systems of Oak Trees" at Hunker.com. Why Leaf stuck it there, we have no idea...

Cottonwood Trees for Dummy Leaf Collectors

Cottonwood leaf

Here at the Antisocial Network, we often complain about people with journalism degrees who think that their "training" in "how to research" a topic makes them instant experts on everything in the world. Actually, we don't complain about them, we slap them around; metaphorically, of course. What could make a web designer and insurance agent like Kate McFarlin think she's qualified to teach a fifth-grade science class is beyond us, but there she was at eHow.com, trying to answer the question, "What Tree Does a White Fuzzy Seed Come From?"¹ for Hunker.com.

Rock Gardens for the Dummy Botanist

Alpine plant blooming in snow

If, like one of our researchers, you were at one time privy to the members-only discussion boards at eHow.com, you're already aware that more than one of the site's writers was a complete idiot. One active discussion board was intended to help "explain" titles to the contributors when they couldn't figure them out for themselves. Of course, the typical reason they couldn't just google the title (the usual method) was that the title didn't make any sense or was so general that it couldn't be answered in DMS's all-holy 300 to 500 word content size. That never stopped some people, of course; people who wanted that $10 ($15, $25, $whatever) so badly they'd write anything that would fit; like Lee Morgan, who attacked the question, "What Kind of Plants Live on Mountains?"