Spinning Printer Reviews for Dummies

typical wireless printer

In the break room the other day, one of the newbies was confused by an offhand reference to "spinning content." Apparently, when she hears "spinning," she thinks Soul Cycle or Les Mills. Well, no, spinning content doesn't make you sweat... although it might make you want to gouge out your eyes. So here to introduce the concept of a spinning algorithm to our new employee is an article from SooperArticles.com, a veritable hotbed of spinners. It's returning DotD "Lawrence Barnett" and his "The Advantages of Using a Wireless Printer."¹

Plumbing Advice from an ESL Dropout

Gonna need a plumbing repair agency

It's been a long, long time since we last ventured into the mosquito-laden swamp that is Seekyt.com, almost a year and a half if truth be told. Once of the kids was checking an old reference, however, and ran across a post with the unenviable title "Understanding the Existence of Plumbing Repair Agencies" at the site. Some poking around with the Wayback machine revealed that the original author was one Liz Kemp, even though the post is now attributed to "General Contributor" (someone named Janice, allegedly a founder of the site). We'll be honest: we don't think "Liz" knew what she was writing about. Heck, we don't even think Janice knew what she was saying: Google Translate to English, anyone?

Power Saws for Dummy Tool Users

Chainsaws don't have multiple chain lengths, "Larry"

You might have noticed that we here at the Antisocial network tend to be rather unforgiving of falsehood, particularly when it comes to pretending to know something you don't and then writing about it – what seems to have been the business model of eHow.com, now that we think about it. There are, believe it or not, a few worse freelance sites; one of the worst of which calls itself SooperArticles.com. Darned near every writer at that site is faking a name and biography as well as writing utter crap, utter crap like "The Different Kind of Saws Using Tips" posted by "Lawrence Barnett."

The San Andreas Fault for Dummies

San Andreas fault trace

If you were to mention "earthquake faults"¹ to most people in North America, the natural response would be to mention the San Andreas Fault. It is, after all, the most famous of faults in the United States (although probably not in the world: that might be the Zagros Fault Belt). Given that level of fame, it's no wonder that a half-fast freelancer like Hassam, one with a history of writing dumbassery about earthquakes. would decide to tell all his HubPages.com readers about "The San Andreas Fault Line."

See the USA, the Dummies Version

That's 3,933 miles, "Trudy"

If there's one feature of the lesser content farms that drives our research staffers bonkers, it just about has to be fake travel reviews. Some are reasonably literate considering that the writer has never been there (or hasn't been there in decades), but the worst are the ones in which some content-spinner mangled an article from an in-flight magazine or similar lightweight prose. Here's one of the latter, the only SooperArticles.com post pounded out by Trudy Seeger: "Planning For A Memorable USA Trip? Get These Cities In Your Bucket List First."

Weight Loss for Dummies

It's been a while since we came across the ridiculous prose that marks spun content but, then again, it's been a while since anyone here donned a metaphorical clothespin on the nose and took a look at Seekyt.com. Someone did, however, by plugging subduction site:seekyt.com into Google. Lo and behold, however, the one result had nothing to do with plate tectonics. Instead, it was "How to use meal replacement for Weight Loss," "written" – actually, cut-and-pasted from an internet spinning site – by "General Contributor" (the only author at Seekyt now); although the Wayback Machine says it was posted in 2015 or so by someone using the handle kenreVyes (sometimes known as Ken Reyes). The post, like all posts remaining on Seekyt, is now credited to "General Contributor."

Bicycle Gear for the Dummy Shopper

Every once in a while we run across yet another wannabe content farm. In the post-Panda era, the "crops" at these farms tend to be almost unreadable because of an excess of ads, but that's not their worst trait. Sadly, although many of the world's freelancers are happy to earn 20¢ a day for all their articles, native English speakers aren't. That's very likely why Bubblews was overrun by Filipino teenagers. But on point: today, we feature a writer from a hitherto untapped site, SooperArticles.com: he's Alex Simba, and he penned "Let' [sic] Have a Look on [sic] Essential Cycling Accessories."

Gears for the Cycling Dummy... Again

bicycle gear combinations

Remember the old joke about the patient who tells his doctor, "Doc, it hurts when I do this"? And the medic says, "Well, stop doing it"? We decided to take a day off from the Leaf Group/eHow.com family and really put a hurt on our collective brain by visiting EzineArticles.com. That venue is where we encountered Barbara Greene. Barb cranked out 43 sports-related articles at Ezine (11 of which included the word "venue" in the title). If they're all as bogus as "Tips On How To Use Bicycle Gears Efficiently For A Better And Faster Ride," then Barbie has some 'splainin' to do...

Geothermal Energy for Dummies

simple geothermal system

For some weird reason, all the Leaf Group niche sites are offline today, so we've dug into our (lengthy) file of DotD candidates to find something from another fact -lite or -free website. Fortunately, that's not very hard when there's still content available at EzineArticles.com, content like the rubbish published by Mahfuza Ferdausi Urpa that he called "What Secrets Are Hidden in Our Planet About Geothermal History?"

Tractors for Dummy City Dwellers

Ford 8n tractor

If you aren't old enough to remember the show yourself, ask Mom and Dad (or Grandpa) about  the '60s sitcom "Green Acres": a city slicker decides he'd like to be a farmer, complete with a cast of tobacco-spittin' rustics and a Gabor sister. Apparently the Netflix version reached the home of WritEdge author Ellina James (real name Shreya Vishonoi; she also "wrote" at Seekyt), who shared with her readers something she claimed was "A Brief Introduction to Tractor Accessories for Better Farming."¹ Yeah, sure...

Geophysical Exploration for Dummies

Geophysical exploration for gems

The science types on our staff are understandably disappointed by scientific illiteracy, but realize that not everyone's brain is wired the way theirs are. What they find repugnant, as opposed to disappointing, is the mess the scientifically illiterate make of science facts while freelancing. There is, believe it or not, worse: the freelancer who spins scientific content but is too scientifically illiterate to proofread it. Today's example comes from the fine folks at EzineArticles.com, where someone claiming to be named John M. Milton submitted the rubbish titled "Exploration of Precious Stones by Means of Geophysical Methods."

Network Connections for Dummies

Network connection problems

Ever had problems with your internet service? Ever wondered just why, when you call a customer support line (Ptui!), the interminable message that greets you suggests that you visit support on the web? Yeah, we've wondered, too: you're calling on a phone because you can't contact them via the web! Well, it appears that one of the folks who wrote that script (and, we suspect, provides customer support from someplace like the Seychelles, the Philippines, or central India) is here to help you with the post someone claiming to be Arthurart on HubPages.com called "Tips On How To Fix The Network Connection."¹ We won't say "Arthur" wrote it, because it's painfully obvious (much as in his travel articles) that he found an article somewhere and ran it through a content spinner; maybe even found two and combined them. In other words, "Yuck."

Get some Amethyst, Dummies!

Amethyst crystals

Our science team members run across more than a few people who ascribe magical powers to crystals during their research. We tend to avoid that content like the plague, mainly because we're not in the habit of trying to debunk metaphysical claims, though we're perfectly happy to point out a writer's innate dumbassery whenever they start making errors of fact. Sometimes, people are just trying to sell their products – that seems to be the case with Eric Jhonson [sic] of DailyTwoCents.com, who's penned a series of articles about gemstones that are... somewhat suspect. Given that Jhonson's bio says he's "an accomplished writer," we figured anything he says is fair game,  so we're taking on "Amethyst Gemstone: All That You Ever Wanted to Know."¹ Does Eric elucidate? or just advertise his goods on some auction site called LiquidationChannel.com?

Visiting Indianapolis for the Dummy Traveler

Indianapolis Children's Museum

It's time to take another look at fake travel reviews again, and with the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 (the iconic auto racing event, no matter what NASCAR fans say), we thought we'd take another look at the Crossroads of America. We've already caught serial armchair traveler Isabelle Esteves pretending to have visited Indy, so we thought we'd see who else out there likes to write fake travel reviews. It took just one google search – indianapolis site:hubpages.com – to turn up a bit of badly-spun content some lazy, self-appointed "freelance writer" had apparently lifted from the city's tourism bureau. The culprit this time? HubPages.com's Arthurart, who performed a not particularly scintillating bit of copy-mangling in a post he called "What to See in Indianapolis."¹

Foundation Repairs for Dummies

Cracked brick wall

Recently we've been seeing way more television advertisements for foundation repair than we think necessary (one company, to be precise); but we suppose that any homeowner who has foundation problems would be happy to to find a company to help him. We imagine that there's useful information available on the internet to a homeowner in need, but we certainly hope that anyone whose foundation is decrepitating will take a pass on the advice (and we use that term extremely loosely) that Seekyt.com author (ditto that "extremely loosely") lucy_hale posted in "Rebuilding Your Home's Foundation." An aside here: we're pretty certain that the author of this rubbish is not the singer whose name he or she appropriated, probably in hopes of garnering more hits...

Spin Classes for Dummy Fitness Buffs

Spin class

We occasionally get the impression here at the Antisocial Network that as much as half the posts freelancers submit to content farms have been placed there for the one purpose only, and that's  for inserting an affiliate link or advertising for a business. What we find strange, and sometimes more than a bit amusing, is that many of the more avaricious posters use the same text at several sites; running it through a spinning algorithm to make it look "different" to search engines. That's probably what SpinningShoes did over at Seekyt.com in the post "Advantages of Using Spinning Shoes For Spin Bike Classes." It's more than a little amusing that this worthy uses a spinning algorithm to write (and we use the word loosely) about spinning classes...

So, you are probably thinking, just where did we get the idea that this particular content might be spun? Well, just take a look at what it says: how else would you get twisted verbiage like

Pedometers for Dummies

Classic pedometer design

Pedometers are hot right now – well, actually, "wearables" are hot – so you can expect a lot of incompetents to come out of the woodwork and blather about step counters. We're talking folks like SuperJenny at Seekyt.com, a worthy who inflicted the rubbish called "A Pedometer Using for Weight Loss – How a Pedometer can help you to Lose Weight" on  unsuspecting readers. As a public service, Jenny's next post really should have been about "How to Relieve Headaches Brought on by Tortured Prose"...

If there was any question at all that Jenny (or should we call her[?] "Super"?) is another of the non-native English speakers who routinely spin some article they found somewhere else and post the results at a content farm, that question disappeared in the first paragraph:

Central Air Conditioning for Dummies

Parts of a central air conditioning system

Next to misinformation, plain and simple, the second greatest sin of the money-hungry freelancer has to be spun content. Where the misinformers take on subjects outside their experience and make a mess of facts and figures, spinners just take the words of another and run them through a synonym-generation app. Spinners with good writing skills can carry this off as long as they don't mung up the facts. Spinners who lack the skills -- many of them, apparently, based in non-English-speaking countries -- just pump out pure drivel. Take, for instance, InfoBarrel.com's vilhuman1975, addressing the topic of "Considerations For Central Air Conditioning."¹ 

Auto Maintenance for Dummies (Seekyt Week 7)

Basic maintenance

All good things must come to an end. Crappy things must come to an end, too; meaning that our staff here at the Antisocial Network are overjoyed that today is day seven of our Seekyt week, and they no longer have to wade through that site, whose performance may be even worse than its content. Whew... To close out the week, we visit Dastan (dastanhomes), lecturing his readers about "Essential car maintenance tips and service." 

Besides the fact that Dastan (an Indo-Canadian handyman, we believe) doesn't know how to use the return key, there are myriad other problems with this copy-spin-paste piece. One such problem is

Attic Insulation for Dummies

Attic insulation

If there's anything the staff of the Antisocial Network find more irritating than freelance bullshit, it's spun freelance bullshit. It's bad enough when money-grubbing halfwits regurgitate randomly connected factoids, pretending to be knowledgeable; it's quite another to take someone else's words and spin them into unrecognizable twaddle. Take, for instance, the content posted by InfoBarrel.com's clickstop, allegedly a primer on "Types of Attic Insulation" (an Iowa-based company named Clickstop.com sells insulation – you be the judge). Clickstop tells us right up front that