Glacial Landscapes for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLVII

Continental glacial features

Few habits are more irksome to the staffers here at the Antisocial Network than faking expertise. As someone¹ once said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." Unfortunately, a significant number – feel free to read "significant number" as "all" – of the people who receive our coveted Dumbass of the Day award have done just that, although in print rather than orally. Be that as it may, it's time to trot out another awardee who pretended to know quite a bit about earth science, much to the displeasure of our staff geologist. She's Sciencing.com contributor Lindsey Taylor who, along with reviewer Sylvie Tremblay, M. Sc., tried to pull the wool over the public eye in "How Do Glaciers Change the Landscape?" Sadly, she failed...

Adding a New Tee in PVC Pipe for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLVI

Fitting a slip tee

When it comes to the world of do-it-yourself home maintenance and repair, we long ago realized that amateurs rarely jump online to ask about the most basic tasks. We guess that's because complete amateurs don't tackle the simplest task; they hire someone to do it for them. It's when they have a little experience and have encountered something new that they start googling solutions to the problem at hand. That realization is why we think eHowian Steve Hamilton missed the point when he pounded out the SFGate.com post called, "How to Make a T in the Middle of PVC Plumbing."

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.

Convergent Boundaries for Dummies, the Rewrite - The Freelance Files MMCCIV

Continental island arc with trench

For some bizarre reason, a not-insignificant segment of scientifically illiterate society seems to think that the mere possession of any degree that includes a "science" designation makes one an expert on all aspects of all science. This rather strange notion is, apparently, the logic behind the recent appearance of the byline, "Reviewed by: [name] M.Sc. [discipline]" on posts at Leaf Group's Sciencing.com. Staffers who've written peer-reviewed articles, which this pretends to emulate, note that the reviewer is always someone with an advanced degree in the science at hand. That's not, however, the case in "Facts on Convergent Boundaries" as rewritten by Meg Schader and reviewed by Sylvie Tremblay, with a degree in "Molecular Biology and Genetics."

A Dummy Explains Gypsum for Ponds - The Freelance Files MMCXCIX

Gypsum for clarifying water

Few of our nominations are for a more pathetic example of freelancing that those in which someone provides an uneducated answer to a truly stupid question. We see those every once in a while, however, and we're more than happy to share them with our readers so that you can ridicule the authors yourself. So, without further ado, let's take a look at "Putting Sheetrock in a Pond to Seal It," now appearing at Leaf Group's HomeSteady.com courtesy of self-styled business guru and sometime insurance agent Charmayne Smith.

Living Fence Posts for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXXVI

barbed wire in tree

Based on years of experience, our staffers firmly believe that there is no more dangerous freelancer than one who claims to be an expert... or is so expert that they head up some department at a content farm. We've already featured (eleven times!) one such self-declared expert who was formerly the "travel channel manager" at content farm Helium.com. Today's nominee, Gail Delaney, apparently fancies herself a horticulture expert, in part because she "has years of gardening experience" and edits gardening for "BellaOnline." Unfortunately, Gail didn't quite know how to address some poor shmuck's question, "How to Use Live Trees for Fence Posts."

10-Speed Bikes for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLVI

Click this backward, Nicole???

When it comes to "instructions" for a task, it's pretty obvious that writers are "talking through their hats" when you see them spending more page space on peripherally-related topics than on the actual instructions. For example, if you ask someone how to change a spark plug and they spend half of their "answer" telling you about how Henry Ford's Model T line changed manufacturing... Well, that's what caught our collective eye with today's nominee, one Nicole Vulcan and her azCentral.com post, "How to Ride a 10 Speed Bicycle."

Jack Rafters for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCVII

 

jack rafters, hip roof

In the "glory days" of content farms, especially those that like eHow.com handed freelancers lists of topics to address, it was common for some people to "stake out a topic" and write as many posts as possible on the subject. If those writers had possessed some expertise, we guess, that would have been fine. Unfortunately, many of them were like eHow's Alexander Callos, who pretended to be an expert on building roofs. Unless he spent summers on a construction crew between years in J-school, however, Callos knew little or nothing about such topics as "How to Cut Jack Rafters"; one of his posts now living at HomeSteady.com. 

Tall Fences for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCVI

rails, eight-foot fence

A (not) surprising number of the freelancers who pounded out post after post at content farms like eHow.com and HubPages.com liked to pretend that they possessed vast experience in the topics they covered. Take eHow's Denise Sullivan, who "after a long career in business" claimed expertise in "business, law, gaming, home renovations, gardening, sports and exercise." No kidding: every one of those areas! If, however, her expertise in law matches the level of knowledge displayed in the HomeSteady.com post "How to Build an 8-Foot Wood Fence," people who've followed her "advice" just might be in jail...

Dikes and Sills for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXXVI

Igneous intrusions

Several freelancer types we've come across in our wanderings have decided – for whatever reason – that they should be their preferred content farm's go-to for a given discipline. Of all the websites we've surfed, and there have been more than a few, we're pretty sure that the site most likely to feature utterly unqualified people to attempt to explain science is the self-described WiseGEEK.com. Having jumped on the niche bandwagon, the site is slowly moving its allegedly wise and geeky content to AllThingsNature.org. That's where we found not-so-wise geek Andrew Kirmayer attempting to explain a geological term he didn't understand – again – in "What Is a Sheet Intrusion?"

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.

Scientific Terminology for Dummies

wind transport and saltation

Every day, tens of millions of students, from elementary school to college, ask their favorite search engine for help with homework questions. A couple of decades ago, someone got the bright idea to leverage those questions by "scraping" the search queries, assigning them to freelancers to answer, and wallpaper the resulting text with ads to generate cash. Sounds like a plan... except that the weak link was the freelancers, who too often had no idea what the answer actually was and were reduced to performing a half-assed copy-reword-paste job on something they found on the 'net. Today's DotD, Susan Sherwood, may have had an PhD in education, but she definitely did not know "What Is the Difference Between Deflation & Saltation?" for Sciencing.com.

Wooden Arches for Dummies

 

Arch shapes in wood

Our staffers at the Antisocial Network long ago lost count of the times they've read through an alleged "how-to" post and mumbled to themselves, "Do these people have the slightest idea what they're talking about?" before answering "Hell, no!" and sending the post to the nominating committee. That's what happened this time: one of our staffers noticed that a self-described "lifelong expert... woodworker" didn't seem to have much experience with the tools of the trade. Without further ado, then, let's meet Tom Price by way of his OurPastimes.com post, "How to Cut an Arch in Wood."¹

Bike Computer Setup for Dummies

Sensor position

We realize that now's not the time to be thinking of hopping on your bicycle and cruising the local streets/trails/whatever... but we can dream. That brought our staffers together to look at some of our collection of potential DotD nominees in the world of self-powered two-wheelers. Sure enough, we came across a post by someone whose eHow.com bio claims that he was once a "contributing writer for Bicycling Magazine." It is, of course, a claim that can't be verified; but if true, based on what Wade Shaddy wrote in the GoneOutdoors.com post "How to Set Up a Bicycle Computer," he wasn't writing about maintenance... at least not maintenance in this century.

Closing Background Programs for Dummies

task manager process tab

Our staffer with inside knowledge of the workings of Demand Media Studios ("DMS", as in "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS'!") tells us that the site's chief demanders wanted so-called evergreen content for their eHow.com website. Unfortunately, they placed the responsibility for creating that content in the hands of people who wouldn't know evergreen if it slapped them in the face with a pine cone. Take, for instance, Tim Mammadov, who scribbled down "How to Turn Off Programs Running in the Background of My Computer" for the website many years ago (it's now at Techwalla.com). Fortunately, Tim probably just got paid five bucks for this rubbish, and that's five more than it was worth...

USB File Transfer for Dummies

Not an ordinary USB cable

Sometimes we think that the only thing worse than a freelancer faking knowledge is someone who believes it. Be that as it may, we're here to remind you that just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true. We know: big surprise, eh? Anyway, today's nominee is a perfect example of what we're talking about. It's a Techwalla.com article written by Suvro Banerji that allegedly tells you "How to Transfer Data From PC to PC Using USB Cable."

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.

SLR Cameras for Dummies

SLR viewfinder system

In the bad old days of content farms, a number of "freelancers" subscribed to lists of the most popular searches, lists that they used to guide their publishing at free-for-all sites like Squidoo or HubPages (some sites, like Helium and eHow, scraped search queries and offered "titles" to their contributors). Catalogs.com, the former WhoWhatWhenWhereWhy.com, seems to have been a free-for-all, which allowed people like George Garza to pound out rubbish like, "What is an SLR camera" (George's byline has been stripped off recently, but it's his, all right.).

Fake Nailer Reviews by Dummies

Wire-collated nail coil

Some of the staffers here at the Antisocial Network wrote at one time or another for review websites like Epinions.com, and they are all well aware of the "anything with a cord or a battery" mentality of fake reviewers. The idea is that reviews of expensive items like appliances, cameras, and power tools paid far better than reviews of music or books; which meant that the less scrupulous contributors were prone to exaggerating a) their experience and b) their expertise. One of the more egregious cases of fakers we've found is James K. Blake of EzineArticles.com, who pounded out 309 "reviews" for the website in about ten months (dumping out as many as twenty per day), more than 200 of them for power tools. If they all suck as much as "Nailing Made Simpler With The Hitachi NV75AG Framing Coil Nailer" (and the ones we're read do), you'd be wise to avoid his "work."

OS Cloning for Dummies

clone a drive

 Every once in a while we run across a how-to that, supposedly, was written by someone who knows what they're doing. We used the word "supposedly" because we long ago realized that the biographies some freelancers publish are as bogus as their advice. Take, for example, attorney and alleged holder of a "Bachelors' [sic] Degree in Information Systems" TS Jordan of ehow.com. Our nominee gifted the world with his eHow.com version of "How to Copy My Operating System to a CD," which now resides at Techwalla.com.