Box Steps for the Incompetent Carpenter - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVI

Framing Box Steps

Hi again: it's been a while since we've taken to the 'net to flog greedy freelancers for their ignorance of their topics. Yet here we are again, this time giving the literary equivalent of the golf clap to yet another eHowian, one making his second appearance on the pages. Please give a... well, not warm but, tepid?... welcome to the pride of HomeSteady.com, Rick Paulas, this time gifting his attempt to explain "How to Build Box Steps" on the internet. Sadly, the one-time telecommunications major's knowledge of box steps is about the same as his knowledge of sprinkler systems – slim to none.

Lengthening a Door for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIII

hollow core door construction

We know how much people like to take polls, so here's a quick, two-choice poll for you, dear reader. If you need someone to tell you "How to Lengthen a Wood Door," whose instructions are you more likely to trust:

1. A carpenter or general handyperson
2. A "professional business copywriter, journalist and photographer"

If your answer is number 2, then the rubbish that returning DotD Jenn Starr pounded out for eHow.com is right up your alley, and all you need do is follow that link. If you aren't sure, read on and we'll tell you why that wouldn't be a good idea.

Plate Grooves for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLI

shelf with plate groove

It's Monday, and we're in kind of a hurry. Bear with us... Being in a hurry seems to have been  requirement for the freelancers who wrote for eHow.com's content farmers, especially when it comes to facts. Given that repeat offender Nichole Liandi barely topped 200 words for her work (a word we use loosely, mind you) in "How to Put a Plate Groove in a Shelf," it's surprising how little knowledge the young history grad managed to convey to her readers.

Shimano Derailleur Adjustment for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXXIV

derailleur barrel adjuster

It is astonishing (though it probably shouldn't be)  to our house bike mechanic that the first step of damned near every eHow.com post purporting to tell people how to adjust the rear derailleur on a bicycle includes some variation on the words "loosen the cable bolt." It's as if all those freelancing morons just copied one another's work, swapping in "Altus" for "Tourney" or "SRAM" for "Shimano." Oddly, it seems as though they all cited a book for their "reference," too. Well, we have a REAL reference, one that's online, and we'll point you to it in a few minutes. But first, let's look at just how clueless one Donovan Gillis proved himself in the SportsRec.com post, "How to Adjust a Shimano Tourney Derailleur."

Building a Stage for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXXIX

stage substructure

The oldest articles in the eHow.com universe were, regrettably, uploaded without external references, so you're never sure where these people got their "information." Of course, that's insignificant considering that the material was vetted by a staff of "content editors" who generally knew even less about the topic than the person who wrote it; a freelancer who often knew less about the topic than the person who originally asked "how do you...?" That's why the website ended up with rubbish like the post "How to Build a Stage for Concerts," a Nichole Liandi concoction that now lives in the niche site, OurPastimes.com.

A Farmhouse Table for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXIII

real farmhouse table

Are you tired of tables yet? We know we are...  so, we promise, this is the last one, at least in this consecutive run of table talk. Who knows what dumbassery lurks on the 'net for us to expose in the future? We're sure there's a lot. OK, with that out of the way, let us have a look at Caprice Castano and her attempt to tell eHow.com readers "How to Build a 12-Foot Farmhouse Table" way back in 2009. Leaf has since migrated the post to HomeSteady.com, if anyone cares. We know we don't!

Triangular Tables for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCX

simple corner table

Another day, another clueless freelancer pretending to be an accomplished woodworker. As the Twitter hashtag says, #mustbeeHow... whatever the case, today's nomination accrues to yet another HomeSteady.com post bundled with such fine work as that of the previous DotD, Judi Light Hopson. Today's awardee is accounting grad-slash-hotel geek Dan Zisko, who foisted "How to Make a Triangular Corner Table" on the 'net in hopes of collecting a few bucks from eHow.com. Shame on him: it's pretty obvious he had no idea what he was talking about!

Shovels for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCVII

13 Different Shovels

It's always seemed to make good sense to us that when you want useful information about a topic, you get it from someone who already knows that information – not someone who has to look it up. If you ever doubted that, just ask your Google Home (or Alexa) a question that can't be answered with a simple fact and see what answer you get...  Whatever the case, we're pretty sure that, if you have ever wondered "What are the Best Tips for How to Shovel?" you might want to ask someone who... has used a shovel a time or two. That very likely does not include Jessica Ellis of WiseGEEK.com. Chances are pretty good that the theater graduate is more comfortable with... smaller tools. Like a pencil.

How Dummies Install Sliding Door Locks - The Freelance Files MMCXCIII

sliding door lock

Maybe it's just us (we hope not), but here at the Antisocial Network we think that when you hire someone to fix something that's broken or redo a substandard workman's job, you should expect the updated job to be an improvement. Let's say your deck is leaning because the original builder did a lousy job of building the supporting structure. If you hire someone to fix it, you expect the results to be strong and sturdy. In the case of  "How to Install a Key Lock on a Sliding Glass Door," the job Michelle Miley performed would, sadly, not meet those expectations.

Dishwasher Knockout Plugs for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLXXI

disposal plumbing

Remember the cartoon that told you to pound forehead on keyboard? Every once in a while an Antisocial Network staffer gets the urge to do exactly that. It usually happens when someone comes across the sort of dumbassery that only occurs when "communications" majors try to explain tasks and procedures they've never attempted themselves by using references that... well, that aren't on point. Most recently, a staffer ran across a post by returning DotD Chad Buleen, who was pretending to know help someone complaining that "My Dishwasher Won't Drain and I Just Installed a New Garbage Disposal" at Hunker.com (a niche site full of content from eHow.com).

Built-In Cabinets for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLVII

Built-in cabinets

Among the more irritating tricks of the eHow.com contributors' trade was and remains the practice of ignoring the meaning of a question to make it easier for an ignorant freelancer to answer. That was, unfortunately, easy to get away with because the "content editors" who supposedly fact-checked posts typically  knew even less about the topics in question than the person writing the content. Today's nominee is one such contributor, a returnee by the name of Mark Morris. Morris decided that the "professional carpentry experience" he claimed allowed him to tell people "How to Use Stock Cabinets for Built-Ins" for HomeSteady.com. It apparently didn't...

Water Supply Lines for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXX

compression fittings

The website formerly known as eHow.com was infamous for forcing its contributors to adhere to a strict "house style." One of the format requirements was that every post must begin with an introduction, of 75 to 100 words. Given that many of the people were writing instructions for tasks they'd never themselves heard of, much less carried out, a lot of those introductions were... well, they were hilarious. A case in point is Christopher John, who attempted to explain to HomeSteady.com readers "How to Replace Kitchen Faucet Water Lines That Don't Reach."

Building a Roll-top Door with a Dummy - The Freelance Files MMCIV

articulating roll-top door 

Trying to follow instructions written by an expert can be difficult if you have no experience with the task. Trust us on that: you lack the anility to visualize the various techniques and procedures... Difficult as doing so may be, you're far worse off if you try to follow directions reworded by freelancers who had no idea what they were talking about. We found exactly that situation when we read the eHow.com post, "How to Build a Wooden Roll Top Door in a Cabinet," posted by freelancer Jonah Morrissey.

Faucet Removal for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMXCVI

Moen faucet

It's fairly rare for one of the staffers to come across a website we haven't featured before, not counting all those niche sites being populated with existing eHow, HubPages, and WiseGEEK content. Today's nominee, however, comes to us courtesy of a site we've never featured before, some place calling itself HowToDoThings.com. The website first burst on the scene back in 2001 and seems to have been busy in 2010-2013 (the heyday of content farms), but has been essentially moribund since early 2014. Yuri Anderson, whose expertise included such topics as "how to write a romance novel" and "how to play with a three-month-old baby" (he said to give the child a "rattler"), is our first-ever HowToDoer, thanks to his decidedly doofus post, "How To Remove a Moen Faucet."

Furniture Modification for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMXCIII

Nail this, Josie?

Interestingly enough, every once in a while we come across a new nomination by following the "references" cited by previous DotD winners; which reminds us a great deal of a sort of blind-leading-the-blind series. That's just what happened today, anyway: a few days back, we saw that clueless "professional writer" Regina Edwards had cited the Josie Myers WiseGEEK.com post, "How do I Make a Canopy Bed?" when attempting her own instructions for a four-poster-to-canopy bed conversion. Somehow Edwards managed to extract the single most doofus suggestion Myers made and run with it. Huh: how about that...

Woodworking Plans for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXXIV

well-designed bread box detail

Starting at about the time of Google's Panda II update, contributors" to eHow.com began being required to cite references for their (alleged) how-to instructions. Since some of them did nothing but perform an MSU¹ job for plans, they often had to scramble for something that at least looked like they'd read it. The more cunning ones just pretended to have found plans or instructions in some offline reference, but some just forged ahead and pumped out their crap, relying on eHow.com's "content editors" to be just as unfamiliar with the tasks as they were. Brandon Salo apparently fell in the second group, at least according to his Hunker.com post that allegedly gave people "Do-it-Yourself Plans for a Wooden Breadbox." Hint: it didn't...

Bay Window Construction for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXIX

There's more to a bay window roof, Sharon...

If our staffers could wave their magic wand and delete one type of content from internet content farms, it would probably be so-called "how-to" posts written by people who, frankly, have no idea how to perform the task about which they wrote. Of course, doing so might put us out of business, but it would definitely be for the common good. We're thinking specifically of posts like "How to Make Bay Windows" at HomeSteady.com, which was originally uploaded to eHow by Sharon Penn. We happened to notice that Penn's work bears a more than passing resemblance to a LovetoKnow.com post on the same subject by one Courtney Ramirez, which we lampooned a few years back.

Rattling Doors for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXVI

Spacers to reduce door clearance

If you pay much attention to advertising for over-the-counter medications, you might be familiar with the phrase "symptomatic relief." That's just the advertiser's way of saying, "This isn't a cure, it just makes you feel better." When there isn't a cure – e.g., the common cold – symptomatic relief is about all you can expect. When it comes to diagnosing problems in your home, however, just fixing the symptoms may not be the wiser course. Unfortunately, the freelancers at eHow.com, like Bailey Shoemaker Richards, weren't big on diagnosing problems; which is (one of the ways) why her HomeSteady.com post, "How to Stop a Bedroom Door From Rattling" went pear-shaped.

Storage Bench Plans By and For Dummies

Bench with hinged lid

Some of the so-called plans for woodworking projects that eHow.com's greedsucking "contributors" foisted on the internet would be hilarious if they weren't actually (still) out there for unsuspecting wannabe DIYers to read. It never ceases to amaze us that some putz with a business degree who's never operated a power tool could pretend to be qualified to create their own plans for furniture-grade projects and get away with it. Although there were hundreds (if not thousands) of these unqualified drones, a name that we'd seen before popped up in the morning meeting recently. As a result, we're here to award B. T. Alo yet another DotD for the HomeSteady.com post optimistically titled, "How to Build a Storage Bench With a Hinged Top."

Varnish in Your Gas Tank for Dummies

Varnish in carburetor

The nice people who ran the website eHow.com decided at one point that all their "contributors" (as they termed the freelance hacks who submitted their rubbish) needed to provide biographical information. Supposedly, this was so readers would recognize expertise; but in reality it revealed that many of the people writing about hard science and construction had BFAs in creative writing or BAs in journalism. Still, those bios can be amusing, as in the one provided by Kayar Sprang (real name probably K. R. something): that one crowed that she "specializes in subjects she has expertise in"; a claim that, based on the ItStillRuns.com post "How to Clean Out Varnish in a Gas Tank," was a bald-faced lie.