Repointing Masonry for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXIII

repointing stone

Like many homeowners in the era of YouTube tutorials, our staffers often research DIY home repairs before deciding to call in a professional. Unlike many of their neighbors, the majority of the folks who write for the Antisocial Network aren't afraid to tackle simple- or intermediate-level projects – which leaves out roofing and remodeling an entire kitchen. One of them recently looked into repointing some brickwork and, is their wont, decided to check on the topic at the mother lode of misinformation, eHow.com. As expected, the topic had been discussed, and by a familiar name. Let's see whether HomeSteady.com writer G. K. Bayne knew what she was talking about in "How to Repoint a Stone Fireplace." Here's a hint: based on her three previous appearances, we rather doubted it...

Lengthening a Door for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIII

hollow core door construction

We know how much people like to take polls, so here's a quick, two-choice poll for you, dear reader. If you need someone to tell you "How to Lengthen a Wood Door," whose instructions are you more likely to trust:

1. A carpenter or general handyperson
2. A "professional business copywriter, journalist and photographer"

If your answer is number 2, then the rubbish that returning DotD Jenn Starr pounded out for eHow.com is right up your alley, and all you need do is follow that link. If you aren't sure, read on and we'll tell you why that wouldn't be a good idea.

Sagging Shelves for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLIV

sagging shelf

We've noticed – many, many times – that the less familiar our nominees are with their topic, the more likely they are to develop some sort of tunnel vision. To put it another way, if they don't know what they're talking about, they're likely to focus on a single solution to a problem to the exclusion of all other solutions or, for that matter, versions of the problem. Don't get it? Well, maybe you will after following Taylor Patrick through her HomeSteady.com post, "How to Stop Shelves From Sagging in the Middle."

How Dummies Install Sliding Door Locks - The Freelance Files MMCXCIII

sliding door lock

Maybe it's just us (we hope not), but here at the Antisocial Network we think that when you hire someone to fix something that's broken or redo a substandard workman's job, you should expect the updated job to be an improvement. Let's say your deck is leaning because the original builder did a lousy job of building the supporting structure. If you hire someone to fix it, you expect the results to be strong and sturdy. In the case of  "How to Install a Key Lock on a Sliding Glass Door," the job Michelle Miley performed would, sadly, not meet those expectations.

How a Dummy Installs Transition Molding - The Freelance Files MMCXC

laminate to carpet transition

Most of us are familiar with the concept of a "tell," right? You know, the poker player who scratches his nose when she's bluffing, or the baseball pitcher who shrugs his shoulders before throwing a changeup? Well, a lot of freelancers have a tell of sorts, in particular when they're writing about a topic that, to be honest, they shouldn't be writing about. Today's nominee is one such freelancer, another the unending line of J-school grads who've written for eHow.com. Meet Cheryl Munson, whose tell in "How to Lay Laminate Flooring Over Concrete and Transition to Carpet" was pretty obvious to anyone who'd ever done the job.

Dishwasher Knockout Plugs for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXXI

disposal plumbing

Remember the cartoon that told you to pound forehead on keyboard? Every once in a while an Antisocial Network staffer gets the urge to do exactly that. It usually happens when someone comes across the sort of dumbassery that only occurs when "communications" majors try to explain tasks and procedures they've never attempted themselves by using references that... well, that aren't on point. Most recently, a staffer ran across a post by returning DotD Chad Buleen, who was pretending to know help someone complaining that "My Dishwasher Won't Drain and I Just Installed a New Garbage Disposal" at Hunker.com (a niche site full of content from eHow.com).

Sliding Door Conversion for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXLIII

Our staffers long ago learned to read do-it-yourself instruction at places like eHow.com with a jaundiced eye. While some (but not all) of the blogs about DIY projects are real and include useful information, rubbish that some J-school grad pounded out in a few minutes based on partial understanding of the question is often full of misinformation and outright crap. Take, for instance, the post that J-school grad and wannabe med student Nat Fondell scribbled down for HomeSteady.com claiming to explain "How to Change Sliding Closet Doors to Swing Doors."

Deck Maintenance for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXXXIX

checking of wooden post

Random misuse and other mangling of terminology in freelancer posts is usually a sign of one of two things: either the content has been spun from something accurate (or, sometimes, something else inaccurate), or the person who typed out the words was unaware of the error. Word salad like that s a common criterion for DotD nomination, especially when accompanied by a bio that lacks any evidence of expertise. Today's nominee, Jessica Kolifrath, tried tackling the question of "Safe Ways to Shore Up a Deck," but neither her AA in psych nor her comprehension of the problem suggested her work would be useful.

Rattling Doors for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXVI

Spacers to reduce door clearance

If you pay much attention to advertising for over-the-counter medications, you might be familiar with the phrase "symptomatic relief." That's just the advertiser's way of saying, "This isn't a cure, it just makes you feel better." When there isn't a cure – e.g., the common cold – symptomatic relief is about all you can expect. When it comes to diagnosing problems in your home, however, just fixing the symptoms may not be the wiser course. Unfortunately, the freelancers at eHow.com, like Bailey Shoemaker Richards, weren't big on diagnosing problems; which is (one of the ways) why her HomeSteady.com post, "How to Stop a Bedroom Door From Rattling" went pear-shaped.

Doors and Mini Struts for Dummies

cabinet door with strut

As we read through each day's "research" material, posts at the internet's various surviving content farms, we are often amazed by the apparent inability of supposedly well-educated "freelancers" to read a simple interrogative sentence. Take, for instance, today's nominee: more than a decade ago, some poor schmuck took to the web to find out "How to Install an Overhead Cabinet With Mini Struts." The question made it to eHow.com, where some freelancer using the name F. R. R. Mallory attempted to answer it. Despite FRR's Berkeley degrees, however, she doesn't appear too literate...

Table Repairs of the Dummy Variety

table leg bracket

Many of the staff believe that they could recognize a how-to article written by one of the freelancers at the former eHow.com just by reading through the "things you'll need" list. They're probably right: along with the planks, beams, and circular saws that show up in almost every post involving woodworking; you can expect to find a reference to "metal corner braces" whenever something wooden needs repairs. You know, like the botched job of "How to Install a Table Leg Brace" that John Walker wrote for HomeSteady.com.

Balancing Air Conditioning for Dummies

HVAC duct damper with handle

Among the more... irritating? features of the freelancers who pounded out post after post for eHow.com was the frequent assumption that, even though they knew nothing about a topic, they still knew more than some poor schmuck who entered a question into a search engine. The sad truth was that they often knew as little, and sometimes even less... Take, for example, today's nominee, eHowian C. O. Ryan, who attempted to explain to some poor homeowner "How to Adjust the Ducts on a House Air Conditioner," which we found infesting SFGate.com.

Caulking Windows for Dummies

Not a storm window

 Few of the freelancers who get nominated for the DotD are more irritating to the staffers than the ones who claim to have "researched" their topic and provide references to... show their work... yet clearly did not read the stuff they claim to have used. That's what tripped up today's nominee, John Rose, in his SFGate.com post, "How to Recaulk a Storm Window on a House With Vinyl Siding." All the staffer who turned this one up needed was to spend about thirty seconds to find what Rose missed and another thirty to find the information in his claimed "reference."

Doors for the Dummy RV Owner

RV replacement door

A friend of ours who's read a lot of professional papers over her career says that one of the things she always looks for in the bibliography is the quality of the sources. She's taken to heart the advice of an English Comp professor she had decades ago, who said that relying on "Reader's Digest" and The National Enquirer as sources would be... questionable. We say that the same holds true for online content, so when a staffer turned up a post at GoneOutdoors.com whose sole reference was a previous DotD winner, we knew we had a strong candidate. Let's give a Bronx cheer, then, for Anna Rose and her post, "How to Install an RV Door."

Locks in Metal Doors for Dummies

Bolt with drive-in latch

One of the hallmarks of the clueless freelancers at the former eHow.com was an inability to see potential problems with the "solutions" they concocted. We long ago stopped counting the times we found one of them trying to say that a technique that would work fine for situation A would also work for situation B. That's what tripped up today's nominee, who – at least according to her eHow biography – should have known better. She's returning DotD Emily Beach, here to tell readers of HomeSteady.com "How to Install Locks in Metal Doors."

French Door Installation for DIY Dummies

Add caption

One of the offices in the converted residence we use for the Antisocial Network's World HQ has french doors, apparently into what was once the master bedroom. Replacing the cheap doors with something more contemporary – multi-light mullioned doors with frosted glass – has been on the to-think-about list for years, so the staff have studied them in some detail, In other words, we have a number of people around here who could have done a better job of writing the HomeSteady.com post, "How to Install French Door Handles" than the guy who did, Mark Morris (aka markrmorris2).

Transom Windows for Dummies

some transom windows do open, Alex

Among the frequent deficiencies of the freelancers who infested the former eHow.com as the site's "contributors" was a near-total lack of experience with the topics they pretended to address. A not surprising number of DIY how-to posts were written by journalism and English grads who had never even thought about a task before pretending to describe it. Some were so clueless as to not even be able to define the job... some, like returning DotD Alexander Callos¹ and his attempt to tell people "How to Replace Transom Windows" at HomeSteady.com

Storm Door Glass for Dummies

Cole Sewell storm door detail

We're well aware that about half the people who search for information on the 'net are, to be polite, of below-average intelligence,¹ so we expect them to say and do stupid stuff. Heck, we've been known to do stupid stuff from time to time (although not in recent memory). Whatever the case, the people doing the research have a right to be dumb about the topic because, after all, if they weren't dumb, they wouldn't be researching it: right? On the other hand people who claim to be giving them the information they need certainly need to be well-versed in their topic. Sadly, when someone asked Lynn Rademacher "How do I Change the Glass in a Cole Sewell Screen Door?" that poor person didn't get a good answer at HomeSteady.com.

Patching Drywall for Dummies

drywall patch

By the time they've moved into their first house, most people have learned the basics of patching holes in drywall. Truth be told, many of them still think it's OK to fill nail holes with toothpaste like they did in their dorm rooms, but some of the more adventurous have found that larger holes can result from thrown objects or simple roughhousing. We know of one person who's cell phone left nice, linear hole in drywall. When it comes to patching those larger holes, many turn to the web for instruction. Let's hope, for their sakes, that they don't find the WiseGEEK.com post, "What is a Drywall Patch," at the top of the results, 'cause Malcolm Tatum had no idea what he was talking about.

Putty and Spackle, the Clueless Comparison

spackling holes

The staffers here at the Antisocial Network keep a sort of running score: how many words of a post are necessary to raise the red flag? In the world of the former eHow.com, many of the nominees prove their mettle (so to speak) in the introduction. More than a few of the site's contributors have tripped themselves up in the first sentence. Today's nominee is one such candidate, a college student by the name of Mitchell Land whose Hunker.com post, "Putty vs. Spackle," went down in flames in a mere four words: "Putty is an adhesive..."