Crushing Rocks for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCII

arc welding

Some of our DotDs make themselves known through their inability to answer a question, whether through ignoance or stupidity; others by their inability to understand the question or the reason it was asked. Of course there are those who manage to check both boxes; but we think today's nominee, unlike many of his fellow eHow.com "contributors," actually found an answer of sorts to the question. Victor Fonseca failed in two ways, however: first, he didn't understand the instructions he parroted and second, he failed to think through why someone might ask "How to Build a Rock Crusher" (now at SFGate.com).

DIY Tree-Climbing Spikes for Accident-Prone Dummies

commercial tree spikes

In olden days you could watch a utility lineman scamper up a wooden pole as if he (they were always men in those days) were part kitty-cat. Nowadays they all use bucket lifts, and you would be hard-pressed to find a pair of the nifty devices the guys used to get started up the pole; the same handy-dandy tools that (some) loggers still use: tree spikes. If you really wanted a pair, you could probably make your own – but heaven help you if you try to use the directions scribbled down by Ezmeralda Lee in the SportsRec.com post, "How to Make Tree Climbing Spikes."

That's Not a DIY 3-Point Hitch, Dummy

3-point hitch

Several of the staffers have worked on farms at one time or another, so they're reasonably familiar with the idea of a 3-point hitch. The operative phrase is, quite clearly, "3-point"; meaning that the system has thee points of attachment; typically describing a geometry similar to a capital letter A. That geometry is what made one of those former farmers submit today's DotD nomination, an eHow.com post by Cameron Easey titled, "DIY 3-Point Hitch Frame" (now found at GardenGuides.com).

Metal Frames, the Dummy Version

assembling metal picture frames

Some of the freelancers at the old eHow.com were, to be blunt, absolutely shameless. They had to know that they were pumping out utter bull just to pick up a few bucks per post. We mean really: some of the rubbish these people published was patently absurd! The new version of eHow.com (Leaf Group niche sites) seems to be cleaning up some of the litter, especially HomeSteady.com (where we often find that DotD-winning posts have disappeared). but others? not so much. While it's still there, then, let's have a look at Tzvi Raphael and his OurPastimes.com post, "How to Make Metal Picture Frames."¹

Hardened Steel at Home, the Dummy Method

DIYer's brazing hearth

Most times that our staffers nominate someone for a DotD, they run a quick check at the source to see what other stupidity, if any (and there's usually more), the freelancer has floating around the internet. The staffer who found J. Johnson a couple of days ago at eHow.com did just that, and they were amazed at Johnson's back catalog of dumbassery. So amazed, in fact, that they urged us to bring J. back after just a couple of days so we could share her moronic approach to "How to Strengthen Steel," which lives at Hunker.com.

Soldering for DIY Dummies

We were reading some freelancer's attempt to describe a simple plumbing repair yesterday when we noticed that the guy (who claims to be a famous lawyer...) wasn't familiar with how copper pipe is joined. He never mentioned the word "solder," for instance. We immediately sent an intern to the 'net to see what kind of dumbassery the rest of the freelancers have managed to get published. Take a gander at what WiseGEEK.com contributor S. Mithra had to say on the topic of "What Is Soldering?" (now at niche site aboutMechanics.com after a brief sojourn at InfoBloom.com).

Chamfer and Debur for Dummy Machinists

Pipe on right has burrs removed and edges chamfered

We love it when freelancers who think they're especially well-trained fall completely flat on an assignment. You can hear the snarky snickers all over the conference room when one of the Antisocial Network staffers turns up utter bullbleep published by someone who really should know better. It's almost as hilarious to come across a long-time, extensively published freelancer who totally muffs an easy assignment... like what Lexa W. Lee did when she uploaded her post "What Is Chamfering & Deburring" to SFGate.com.

Iron Smelting for Dummies

Home smelter or bloomery

In the bad old pre-Panda days (before Google jiggered their search results to downgrade content farms), freelance-driven websites had low standards for the factual quality of their content. The king of content farms, eHow.com, allegedly had standards, but those were by and large intended to format their content for maximum SEO. In other words, they considered format more important than quality: why else would we find so much utter bullshit at eHow.com? Consider, then, just how awful content must have been to be refused by eHow's vaunted content editors. It happened, though, and our researchers found this example at the (now-defunct) Suite.io. It's from sometime eHow contributor: Dianne Christensen-Hermance with her clumsy rendition of "Refining Iron Ore Processes."¹

Metalworking for Dummies

It's more than a drill press...

The biggest danger of searching for "how-to" advice on the internet is running into advice from people who only googled the topic and transcribed what they found. If they already know at least something about the topic, they probably don't do much damage. If they'd never heard of the topic before typing it into the search box, well, the chances are pretty good they didn't know enough to recognize when they'd made mistakes. People in the know have long derided the self-described go-to howto website, eHow.com, for publishing wa-a-a-a-y too many articles written by people ignorant of the topic in question; people like journalism major and beauty expert Dawn Quinn, who somehow decided she was qualified to tell everyone "How to Machine Hardened Steel."¹ Hint: she wasn't.

If by "machine" the OQ simply meant "drill," Dawn managed to spit out some more or less on-topic copy; though we suspect it was merely reworded from far more authoritative websites (and perhaps an instruction manual). However, it's apparent from the get-go that she is talking through her hat, given that she says rubbish like