How Dummies Set a Bicycle Computer - The Freelance Files MMCXCI

Setting wheel size in mm

Among the seven habits of highly irritating freelancers, one stands out to the staffers of the Antisocial Network as supremely irritating. That's the habit of what we call "redefinition." In cases of redefinition, the ignorant, lazy, or greedy – or any combination of the three – freelancer redefines the question to make it easier to answer. Through the process of redefinition, today's nominee – Rocco Pendola, whom we've already tagged three times for exaggerating his bicycle expertise – utterly ignored the actual meaning of the task "How to Set the Wheel Size in a Bike Computer" to make it possible to collect his fifteen bucks from eHow.com (the post is now at SportsRec.com).

Building a Submarine for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXVII

 

Yes, Civita, people do build homemade subs

Are you familiar with the concept of bait-and-switch? Let's say an unscrupulous vendor advertises widgets for $3.99 but, when you get to the store, there are none at that price. All that's available are widgets that cost twice as much. Bait and switch is, essentially, promising something but delivering something else that is either inferior or more costly. Today's DotD nominee is a case of inferior quality. eHowian Ezmeralda Lee (aka Civita Dyer) took on the topic "How to Build Your Own Submarine" for Sciencing.com, and delivered something wildly different... not to mention scientifically illiterate.

Bicycle Maintenance for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXLII

Construction of a bicycle chain

It's no longer surprising to our staffers that the old adage, "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" has never been truer than in the age of internet content farms. Really: if you're not familiar enough with a mechanical or technological problem to ask a cogent, on-point question; you sure as heck shouldn't expect some self-appointed generalist with an English Lit degree to both understand your question and answer it. Capisce? Well, some poor schmuck asked DoItYourself.com "How to Repair Squeaky Bike Tires," and one of their English grads, Nora Zavalczki, pretended to answer it. Nora's ignorance of all things bicycle, however, was pretty obvious.

Silicate Weathering for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMXCII

chemical weathering of minerals

We've noticed over the years that some people have no qualms about pretending to answer a question using the "spaghetti-test method." That's when you throw a strand of cooked pasta at the wall to see if it will stick. When it came to testing their spaghetti-like writing against the wall of the eHow.com content editor, a lot of pasta was eaten before its time... because the editors were every bit as clueless about the topic as the person who wrote the content. Take, for instance, the Julia Ferrini post at Sciencing.com, "What Is Silicate Weathering?"

Deck Footing Spacing for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXXV

A footing for every post

It's a little thing, to be sure, but the bogosity contained in those little bios freelancers dump at sites like Hunker.com can be a major peeve – almost a pet in some cases – for staffers looking through their work. A case in point is today's DotD nominee, a returning DotD named Gia Miller. Gia's bio claims, and we quote, that "She then spent several years at Elle DECOR [sic] magazine where she immersed herself in the world of interior design. Several apartments and homes later, she’s now mastered the art of DIY." The staffer who found that was confused: since when is interior design a form of DIY? Based on Miller's puny rewrite of the Hunker.com post, "Proper Spacing for Deck Footings," no one here thinks she'd mastered deck-building... at all.

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...

DIY Glass Wind Chimes for Dummies

glass wind chimes

Sometimes our staffers swear that these posts write themselves. This is especially true when one of the freelancers claims to have gotten DIY plans from a source that, when checked, has abso-friggin'-lutely nothing to do with the subject at hand. One of the kids dug into the files and found this example a staffer had turned up years ago. Its Kelly Sundstrom, leaving her "blueprints" niche for the eHow.com post, "DIY Wind Chimes With Glass Bottles."

Odd-Shaped Frames for Dummies

DIY hexagons

The freelancers who infest content farms seem to be born politicians. Ever notice how, when you ask politicians questions they can't – or don't want to – answer, they pivot to the answer they want to give? Back in the bad old days, a lot of contributors to eHow.com did pretty much the same thing. Ask 'em a question they can't answer, and they answer a question that may be tangentially related that they can answer. Take, for example, Gina Samarotto and her SFGate.com post, "How to Frame Odd Shapes."

Wine Rack Instructions for Dummies

No instructions needed, ParaGod

Among the many reasons we find to (metaphorically) slap around greed-sucking freelancers, one can be especially vexing. It's bad enough when someone tried to tell you how to perform a DIY project and botches it because of lack of knowledge and/or experience, but the ones who roll out a bait-and-switch and never even try to provide a guide? They take the cake! "They" being today's nominee, ParaGod, with her InfoBarrel.com post, "How To Build Your Own Wine Rack For Free Or Cheap."

Spiral Staircases for Dummies

Classic spiral staircase

We poke a lot of fun at the Leaf Group family of niche websites, mostly because the standards for those old eHow.com articles tended to be strong on style and weak on substance. Other content farms, however, were even more... forgiving? of writers who pulled stuff like bait-and-switch or advertising masquerading as information; both of which are instant qualifications for DotD status. The site called LovetoKnow.com, regardless of the tagline "Advice you can trust," does (did?) not appear to have much in the way of standards, which is why an wannabe food and interior decoration blogger like Sara Elliot could get away with a title like "Build a Spiral Staircase."

Garages and Garage Doors for Dummies

Garage design ideas

We spend a lot of time at the many former eHow websites, mainly because they're target-rich environments where (in theory) the content is on-point and isn't thinly-disguised advertising spun into English by greed-sucking pigs who aren't particularly familiar with that language. Then again, there are the other, smaller content farms where all of the above comes into play. We usually ignore them. Every once in a while, though, we reach out for their special flavor of dumbassery... and that's why we're here today: meet Lora Davis of EzineArticles.com and her post, "Garage Door Designs."

Self-Employment Expenses for Dummy Giggers

IRS Schedule SE instructions

Serendipity strikes without warning, you know? Well, at least it struck our researcher without warning this time: she was doing some background work on a post at Leaf Group's Sapling.com¹ and found that the author of that post had cited some place called "Made Man" as a reference... on a tax question. Ten seconds' effort made it pretty clear that the freelancer in question had cited a different freelancer at a different content farm. So, without further ado, we give you Francois DuBois of MadeMan.com and his attempt to educate people on "How to Claim Expenses When Self-Employed."² Oh, boy, another content farm...

Dating Fossils for the Dummy Geology Student

We aren't quite sure how the site that calls itself HowStuffWorks.com works, but our staffers suspect that the site may have started out as an eHow-style content farm that subsequently tried to recast itself as an authority on everything (not unlike WiseGEEK.com). You can (usually) tell at which stage in the site's evolution a post was written: if there's a byline, it's meant to be authoritative; if written by a "contributor," it's from the eHow-style era. Unfortunately, some of the long and involved posts with bylines are... less than authoritative. Here's one of them, Tracy V. Wilson and her take on "How Do Scientists Determine the Age of Dinosaur Bones?"

Your Very Own Workbench for Dummy Woodworkers

If you haven't seen the row of clickbait photos spread across the bottom of about 70% of the web pages you access in a day, you must not be paying attention. We mean the ones that advertise crap like, "She had no idea why they were staring," or "You won't believe what [name of celebrity] looks like now!" Of course, if you click on one, you'll find an endless string of stock photos copiously wallpapered with popups and other ads. In other words, bait and switch. You wanted to see what Markie Post or Donny Osmond looks like today, but what you got was 63 unrelated photos! Well, freelancers bait and switch, too, especially when they're basically ignorant of their topic; like HowStuffWorks.com contributor Elizabeth Abbess and her post, "How to Make a Workbench."

How Dummies Build a Chinese Pergola

Chinese-style pergola

We don't know about everyone else, but we find it irritating to follow an internet link to information about something specific and end up with some wimpy general information. That's right up there with bogus "science" and bad "math" when it comes time to choose our next DotD. Speaking of our next DotD, however, here's the nominee for today: she's Linda Marie, who pretended to know "How to Build a Chinese Pergola" for the Leaf Group niche site HomeSteady.com.¹ A little hint? she didn't.

Pet Doors for DIY Dummies

If there's one form of so-called freelance online "how-to" posts that tends to give our research staffers hives, it's the bait-and-switch job. To some extent we can understand it when a freelancer doesn't know enough to write instructions – understand it, but not forgive it. But when someone who claims relevant expertise pulls this trick, it definitely puts the BS in Bait and Switch. That's precisely what we have on our plate for today: LoveToKnow.com contributor Amy Whittle says she going to show us "How to Build a Pet Door"¹... but does she?

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).

The Diagonal of a Square for Dummies

The question said "measure"...

Over the years, we've found that reading the short biographies of contributors to what used to be Demand Media Studios (former parent of eHow.com, SFGate, Livestrong, etc., now known as Leaf Group) can be very revealing. Take today's DotD, Jana Sosnowski: her little bio mentions (of course) a degree in journalism, along with a stint as a "curriculum writer for a math remediation program." Based, however, on "How to Measure the Length of the Diagonal Line of a Square" at Sciencing.com, however, it appears that she might need some math remediation herself.

Hydrogen Generators for Dummies

If you stop by Amazon and browse the customer reviews, you'll find that one of the most common reasons why people give 1-star ratings to a product is "Not as advertised." We're with 'em: nobody likes the old bait-and-switch, whether it's an electrical circuit breaker tracer or a pair of socks. Here at the Antisocial Network, we are quite unimpressed by freelancers who pull that trick in hopes of picking up more pennies. Take, for example Matthew B. Dexter, a self-described freelancer with "expertise in outdoors [sic] living," and the bull he titled "How to Build a Hydrogen Generator"¹ at LovetoKnow.com. Yeah: "How to Build"...

Log Splitters for Dummies

Gas-powered hydraulic log splitter

If you visit the kid's book section at your local independent bookstore, you'll find a series of books with titles like The Way Things Work. David Macaulay, who wrote the original of the series thirty years ago, does a pretty good job of describing the combinations of simple machines that make up everyday objects along with the scientific principles that power them. Sadly for people who google "How Does a Log Splitter Work?"¹ they don't go to Macaulay. Instead, they go to eHow.com and Grant D. McKenzie...