Wiring Decisions for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXI

15-amp breaker

The nice people at eHow¹, apparently thinking that they can fool all of the people all of the time, require that their contributors provide a short bio so that readers know their work is... "authoritative." Unfortunately, that's not always true: take the case of the post a staffer recently turned up at the mother site², a post attributed to Mark Dennis entitled "Adding an Electrical Outlet From a Light Switch." Given that Dennis claimed a "two-year electrical engineering degree," one would expect that his facts would be accurate.

Exterior Outlets on Vinyl for Dummies

exterior outlet box on vinyl siding

The nice people who publish all those niche websites that used to be eHow.com try to make their content look "authoritative" by adding a writer bio to each post. Back in the eHow days, most bios bragged about "communications" and English lit degrees, which tended to be a dead giveaway that the writer knew little or nothing about science, plumbing, or electrical work; despite having published hundreds of eHow articles on those same topics. In the new era, Leaf Group's "cleanup team" members have crafted bios for each of the niches in which the writer claims related experience or training... but are they any more qualified? Let's have a look at one post by someone who claims that, "She developed an affinity for home renovations at an early age, when her parents constantly renovated the family home." It's Mackenzie Maxwell, whom we found writing "How to Add an Exterior Outlet to Vinyl Siding" for HomeSteady.com.

Track Lighting Installation for Dummies

track lighting

By our uncertain measure, it's been several months (four, to be precise) since the last time we took aim at one of the miscreants who wrote for WhoWhatWhereWhyHow.com, or whatever the original name of Catalogs.com was. Since that day, we see, C.c has... disintegrated, sort of. The company appears to have sold off all its "info," as they call it, to some blogger running Wordpress (ptui!). That kind soul has changed the author name on (almost) every post to "user," except for the ones credited to "admin." They can try, but we figured it out anyway: M. Dee Dubroff is the one responsible for "How to Install Track Lighting."

Outlets in Cabinets for Dummies

recessed medicine cabinet

A lot of strange things happen when amateurs attempt to remodel their homes. Some of the ideas people come up with are, to be blunt, rather weird (we were going to say "stupid," but stupid is in the eye of the beholder). The weird idea for today is that someone Googled (or Binged, whatever) "How to Install an Outlet Inside a Medicine Cabinet." The concept alone would be bad enough, but then Cameron Easey went out and attempted to answer the poor schmuck for eHow.com.

Three-way Switch Removal for Dummies

three-way switch

Apparently, no matter how many times we say it around the Antisocial Network, the point still needs to be made: if you want to know how to do something, ask someone who knows. You wouldn't ask for financial advice from a middle-schooler, right? And if you wanted medical advice, you wouldn't ask your Uber driver, right? So why would anyone think that having an English degree qualifies them to write a how-to for electricians? More to the point, why did Jean Asta think she knew enough about "How to Remove a Three-Way Electrical Wall Switch" to write a how-to at eHow.com?

Chandelier Conversions for Dummies

swag lamp showing chain loop

One of the phenomena of the former eHow.com that never ceases to amaze our staffers is the ability of certain of the site's contributors to foul up even the simplest of do-it-yourself instructions. Much of the time it's because the writers didn't' really  use the references they claimed, but instead used some other freelancer's blog or a similarly non-authoritative source. That's what tripped up the author of today's nominee, a little ditty at HomeSteady.com entitled "How to Convert a Chandelier to a Swag Lamp."¹ We can't be certain, but it sure looks as though Jenny Harrington had never performed this particular task...

220-Volt Outlets for Dummies

220-volt receptacle wiring

We've pointed it out here before, but a basic fact about the world of eHow.com "contributors" bears repeating: some of them would attempt to reuse the same "information" for many different posts¹, regardless of the value of that information or their grasp of the necessary knowledge to authoritatively address the topic. One such miscreant is history student Nichole Liandi, who grabbed dozens of electrical-related topics and botched darned near all of them... just as she did in the HomeSteady.com post, "How to Install a 220 Volt Outlet for an Electric Dryer."²

An Outlet in a Cabinet, the Dummy Approach

outlet for microwave inside cabinet

Contributors to eHow.com and its sister sites learned early on that they'd maximize their ill-gotten gains if  they were to grab as many related "titles" as possible and pound out as many variations of the same post in as short a time as they could. Knowledge of the subject was never a prerequisite, just the desire to score many fifteen-dollar stipends in a hurry. We don't know how many posts Nichole Liandi pumped out on residential wiring, but we do know that "How to Install an Outlet Inside a Cabinet" (at the mother site) is the sixth one we've found lacking.

Copying Instructions for Dummies

Wiring inside a thermostat

The "contributors" to the website eHow often found themselves attempting to answer questions for which they had no background, knowledge, or experience. None of those, however, were of importance to the site: all you had to do, as far as the gatekeepers ("content editors") were concerned, was find an authoritative source and reword what you found there. The problem, of course, was that if you had no idea what you were talking about, how could you reword something? You'd probably find yourself in the same quandary as Cadence Johansen when she tried to explain "How to Wire a Digital Thermostat Without Using Batteries"¹ for HomeSteady.com

Horizontal Outlets for Dummy DIY Electricians

Horizontal outlet box

We don't think people say it often enough, so we're perfectly happy to repeat it: you're a lot more likely to get useful advice from people who know what they're talking about than from your garden-variety freelancer at a content farm. Think about it: would you rather learn how to wire a house from someone who gets paid to wire houses, or from someone who gets paid to reword content they found somewhere on the internet? We know who we'd prefer... and it probably wouldn't be freelancer Nathan Fisher, who penned "How to Mount Electrical Receptacles Sideways" at HomeSteady.com.

Dimmer Switches for DIY Dummies

Wiring a three-way switch

It's come to the staff's attention that Leaf Group has engaged what we call a "cleanup team" to perform rewrites on some of the content they'd ported over from eHow to their niche sites. There are, however, mixed results: some of the posts are being rewritten by knowledgeable people, while the rest are rewritten by freelancers who appear to be just as ignorant of the topic at hand as the freelancer who wrote the original. A case in point is "How to Install a Standard Switch From a Dimmer Switch," a Blake Flournoy production at Hunker.com.

Extending Electrical Outlets for Dummies

Electric box extender

We looked over the recent posts and decided it had been a while since we published a post for that we could tag with "dangerous stupidity," but not any more: today's the day. Sit back in your comfy chairs, dear readers, and join us as we have a look at the sort of dumbassery a journalist with what appears to be absolutely no DIY electrical training can dump out on the web. Here, for your amusement, is eHow.com contributor Shala Munroe and her take on "How to Extend Electrical Outlets."

Electrical Ground for Dummies

Ground rod specifications

In case you haven't noticed it, we assign tags to each of our posts; key words and phrases like "dumbass of the day" and "HomeSteady incompetent writer." One tag we don't use lightly is the phrase, "dangerous stupidity": it's reserved for nominees whose advice or instructions are tantamount to nomination for a Darwin Award. Today's nominee, returning winner Marissa Wilson, had a short and inglorious career at eHow. We have yet to find anything she wrote that doesn't qualify her for an award, but – thankfully – today's the first time her award is tagged with dangerous stupidity. Take a look at her thoughts on "How to Install Ground Wiring"¹ at HomeSteady.com.

Lamp Posts for the Dummy's Front Yard

Forget about the wiring, Aryeh?

Not everyone you meet on the street (or the internet) is a trustworthy source of advice when it comes to DIY projects. If we had our preferences, we'd want someone who A) had successfully performed the project at least once and B) was articulate enough to provide clear instructions. Many's the time that an eHow.com contributor fails one or both criteria, which is probably why we call the site (and its daughter niches) the mother lode of misinformation. Today's DotD is another of the site's stable of clueless freelancers, one Aryeh Raphael, whom we found trying to explain "How to Pour a Concrete Lamp Post Base"¹ at GardenGuides.com.

Wiring a Wall Oven for Dummies

Sample oven wiring diagram (220V)

A lot of homeowners try to save cash by doing their own home repairs and, in some cases, remodeling work. Some of them are pretty good at it; others, not so much. Most people are confident about tackling carpentry, fewer will take on plumbing, and fewer still have the courage to perform even simple electrical work. You don't need to be a genius to connect wires, but it's a good idea to have some idea of what you're doing. That, unfortunately, was not the case with HomeSteady.com freelancer Martin Adamovic when she posted "How to Wire an Electric Oven,"¹ back in the days when she called herself "TysonG."

Electrical Outlets in Brick for Dummies

outlet in brick wall

Anyone remember the "Car Talk" show? The Magliozzi brothers (Tom and Ray) constantly made fun of art history majors, along with just about everyone else. Truth be told, if there is any college major our staffers hold in lower esteem than "communications," it's probably art history. We've only come across one or two of them who ventured into freelancing (about topics other than art), but one of them is a doozy: he's Jagg Xaxx¹ from eHow.com, and "How to Install an Electrical Box in a Brick Wall" is an example of the combination of cupidity and stupidity that made eHow.com the laughingstock of the internet.

Wiring a Chandelier for the Dummy Electrician

end-of-run switch wiring

As is so often the case, today's DotD nominee stuck her foot in her metaphorical mouth so blatantly that one of our staffers was able to spot evidence of incompetence in her chosen "how-to" task immediately. Given that the article "How to Wire a Chandelier"¹ at HomeSteady.com is 402 words long (it has to be at least 300 to meet Demand Media's minimum word count), the presence of a sentence of amazing stupidity near the very middle shouldn't stand out... but Laura Hageman somehow made sure it did!

Wiring Duplex Switches for the Dummy DIY Electrician

The research staffers here at the Antisocial Network run across an amazing amount of internet dumbassery in their quest for DotD candidates. They find mistakes, misinterpretations, and downright fakery; all spread across the net in the interest of collecting a few pennies. Today's candidate claimed that she specializes in "home improvement" articles at "various online publications." When it came to explaining to her Hunker.com readers "How to Wire a Double Switch to Two Separate Lights,¹ though, Cecilia Harsch was definitely not helping them. Why anyone would suspect a nurse's aide and Mary Kay rep knows much about the electrical code is beyond us...

Tripping Breakers for Dummy Pool Owners

These are circuit breakers, Whitney

Most would-be DIYers begin their home repair careers with projects like decks and, perhaps, fences. For the majority, the tasks they feel qualified to tackle rarely go beyond such rudimentary carpentry. A few, however, will try their hands at plumbing and even electrical work. In truth, a lot of home electrical repair is pretty simple; but you really need to have a qualified person telling you the safe way to do the job, That definitely rules out eHow.com's Whitney Houston (real name probably Whitney Devine), who – for unknown reasons – considered herself an "expert" on swimming pools. When it came to questions like "What Causes a Pool Pump to Trip a Circuit Breaker?" however, Whitney was drowning in her dumbassery.

Dimmer Switches for the Dummy DIYer

dimmer switch wiring

In the pantheon of freelancing morons, we here at the Antisocial Network are firmly convinced that there are few more irritating (and sometimes dangerous) contributors than the ones who complete a DIY project and then run out and write a how-to article based on their "broad expertise." Take, for example, an EzineArticles.com post by some guy named Gary Jackson, which he called "The Right Way to Install a Dimmer Switch." We had a couple of quibbles with what Jackson seems to think is the "right" way...