Crawl-Space Storm Shelters Designed by Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXI

This is a storm shelter, Jennifer

Over the years of compiling this space, we've seen some pretty cockamamie ideas spring from the minds of greedy freelancers. It's bad enough when someone who doesn't know one end of a screwdriver from the other tries to teach people how to tune up a two-cycle engine or someone who lives in a college dorm "explains" how to build a deck, but when ignorant writers put people in danger? That's crossing a line. The line was crossed back in 2011 when eHow.com's Jennifer Dermody tried to tell the world "How to Build a Storm Shelter in a Crawl Space." That the powers that be at Leaf Group (the erstwhile Demand Media) have left this rubbish visible for over a decade speaks to the reason why eHow is the punchline of a search-engine joke.

Extension Cord Capacity for Dummies

Typical extension cord amperage chart

One of the staffers remembers a lesson she learned about extension cords: she and Daddy were building a fence using a framing nailer, and had set the compressor in the back yard. She'd connected a couple of extension cords and dragged them out in the back yard, but the compressor kept stalling. Daddy explained that she had almost 100 feet of light-gauge extension cord, and it just wasn't supplying enough amperage to power the compressor. Too bad eHow.com's Mary Lougee hadn't learned the same lesson before penning "How to Determine If an Extension Cord Can Handle a Load"¹ for Homesteady.com.

Basement Vaults for Dummy Gun Owners

Basement gun vault

We run across some pretty... what, mindless? instructions from time to time in our research, but the cream of the crap seems to come from liberal arts majors who've attempted to tackle a DIY project far, far, far beyond their personal experience and capabilities. Take, for instance, eHowian Ezmeralda Lee; who took on the assignment to explain "How to Build a Gun Vault in the Basement"¹ back when she was still Civita Dyer. It's now at GoneOutdoors.com...

Gas Leaks for Dummies

We'd like to think that when it comes to basic safety and security, freelancers out there will get the information right. They'll check their sources, learn from experts, and make certain that they understand the subject before they commit words to paper. On the other hand, there are all those journalists who were taught in J-school that they can speak with authority about anything... something like the mess Brock Cooper made at azCentral.com when he published "What Are the Causes of Gas Leaks?"¹

Propane Tank Specs for Dummies

As you might guess from the name, the site eHow.com originally published "how-to" content on topics harvested from internet search queries. As the site grew, they branched out into articles containing lists of "facts" about topics harvested from internet search queries. The site's contributors, most of them as clueless as the people who originally asked the questions, pounded out tens of thousands of half-baked answers to those queries at anywhere from three to twenty-five bucks a pop. Many, sadly, were as uninformed as "Specifications for a 20 Lb [sic] LPG Tank,"¹ a Robert Alley production at HomeSteady.com.