Reasonableness Tests for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXII

Waffle-weave blanket

Are you familiar with the "reasonableness test" concept? It's simple: before you provide an answer to a question or perform a task, ask yourself, "Is my response reasonable?" You could save yourself some embarrassment. For instance, you're making change at your garage sale and someone pays for that six-dollar bicycle with a crisp new ten-dollar bill. Is it reasonable to give them a ten-dollar bill in change? a twenty? Of COURSE not! Well, we don't think MrsBrown performed a reasonableness test before she dashed off a review of a cotton blanket at Kohls.com. 

Miter Saws for the Dummy Carpenter

Hitachi C8FSE Sliding Power Miter Saw

In a world where hyperbole apparently rules, overstatement and exaggeration are acceptable and only bald-faced lies are not allowed [NOTE: this was written pre-Trump]. Of course, politics is the exception to even that lack of rules – but we digress. As far as the money-grubbers among freelancers are concerned, anything you want to say that might pull in eyeballs is fair game, even if the statement is demonstrably stupid or untrue. That's why we've singled out today's DotD, a gent who chose the name PowerToolExpert (real name Dustin Fredrickson) at InfoBarrel.com¹ and dashed off boatloads of nearly identical "reviews" of tools for a few weeks back in 2009 (not content with the bucks he was making there, Dustin bought his own domain (now defunct) where he publishes his half-assed content to this day). As for the reviews (and Dustin's claimed "expertise"), we took a look at an example he called "Hitachi Miter Saw": not a very... SEO-y title, eh?

Power Tools for the Dummy SAHM

Hammer drill

Online reviews are a pet peeve of ours, especially reviews written for money, probably because so many of them are either fake or based entirely on one minute's exposure to the product. The popular wisdom is that reviews of "anything with a cord" are more likely to earn, so total dumbasses desperately seeking pennies have been prone to writing reviews of electronics, vacuum cleaners and power tools about which they know next to nothing - or nothing at all. A dead giveaway is a review that opens with the writer claiming he or she is a total beginner in the field — like the Powerbase Xtreme Hammer Drill review¹ written by Laura Gabrielle at Recommender.com. 

Now Laura's written over 600 reviews for the site, the majority of them reviews of various cosmetics. That probably explains why her opening paragraph reads,

Buying Batteries for Dummies

CR2032 Batteries

Could there be anything more ridiculous than wasting a reader's time imparting information the average twelve-year-old should know? We've already seen instructions, and not very good ones, at that, about how to change light bulbs (information also made available by member aronnax at InfoBarrel.com). But we're done with dumbasses and light bulbs, at least for right now. Today's recipient of the Dumbass of the Day, InfoBarrel class, is Poster: good old Poster, who, for reasons of greed, we must assume, found it necessary to explain "Where to Buy a CR2032 Battery."

Product Reviews by Dummies

Rubbermaid shelving

We've probably mentioned this before, but a couple of the staffers at the Antisocial Network used to hang out at Epinions.com, one of the first websites to capitalize on "real reviews by real consumers." Of course, since reviewers were paid (and sometimes handsomely) for their reviews, more than a few of the reviews turned out to be fake. Whether fake or not, however, it was always interesting and sometimes downright hilarious to see the stupid reasons people had for ranting or raving about a product. Which brings us to today's dumbass, Jill Sanders. 

Unlike AN's usual dumbasses, Jill wasn't writing in a ceaseless search for extra money. No, Jill's a garden-variety dumbass: in reviewing a $250 Rubbermaid shelf kit, Jill told us,