We don't know, but there may not be a better way to court disaster than to take the advice of someone writing for pay at a site like Helium (now, mercifully, gone), Associated Content (ditto), or HubPages. The worst advice, though, seemed to come from the stable of dummies over at eHow. Frankly, anyone who goes to eHow for advice is getting just what they deserve. Let's have a look at what Lacy Enderson tells us about building roof trusses.
 |
| Truss construction |
Ms Enderson, whose bio tells us she's a counselor with a "Masters in Biblical counseling" (we mean, really: is there such a thing?) wrote hundreds of articles for eHow.com, including a whole series on carpentry. We guess because Jesus was a carpenter's son, this good Christian assumed He would speak through her. He didn't, as one might tell from an article entitled "How to Build a Wooden Roof Truss."¹
 |
| Sink plumbing |
What is it with freelance writers and do-it-yourself plumbing instructions? Do they all think they're experts just because they've dialed for a plumber and watched Sir Cracksalot while he unstopped their drain? Apparently so, as is evidenced by Dr. Eugenia Orr, writing at Dumbass Central (better known as eHow.com). Eugenia (whose doctorate is an EdD – it sure as heck ain't in plumbing) educated her readers on the topic of "How to Unhook Kitchen Sink Plumbing" a while back; or at least she (and eHow's content editor) thought she was educating her readers; but she was merely showing her ignorance of the subject. Those who've written for eHow in the past know that the site's motto has long been, apparently, Ignorantia Inultum Abire: "ignorance pays."
Here's some of Eugenia's fine advice on the subject of plumbing:
 |
| Electric GoKart |
We sure hope it doesn’t look as though we're picking on eHow.com when it comes to dumbasses of the day. Aww, hell, who cares – eHow is what the wonks call a “target-rich environment,” seeing as hundreds of dummies made millions of dollars passing out “information” that was useless or, in some cases, worse than useless. One such example is Jorina Fontelera, in a lovely little article entitled “How to Build a Homemade Electric Go Cart.”¹ We suspect the term “go-kart” is copyrighted, hence the weird spelling.
Anyway, Ms. (Mr? let's go with female...) Fontelera rewarded readers with such detailed instructions as
 |
| cutaway view of pistons |
We're back mining the mother lode of good ol' eHow today in search of yet another Dumbass of the Day. In this case, we've found a repeat offender. Not only is today's freelancer a Dumbass, the site itself is a paragon of dumbassery. The topic on which Jennifer Fleming held forth is "How to Calculate Compression Ratio and PSI,"¹ but the jackasses of Demand Media file this misinformation under — get this — "Business." Given that misclassification, it's no wonder the topic ended up addressed by someone who wouldn't know an internal combustion engine if it hit her in the butt. Look at what she said to her wide world of readers:
 |
| Pangea |
Our staff geologist started in the oil industry in 1980: meaning more than thirty-five years’ experience in a field that pretty much mystifies a lot of people. Thankfully, there are citizen journalists out there to “demystify” the oil and gas industry, learned folk like Melvin Porter, who hung his hat over at HubPages.com – or maybe it’s Squidoo; we always get the two confused.
Anyway, Mel took it upon himself once upon a time to educate the public on an industry where our guy's spent more than half his life, posting something he called “Oil Well Drilling: Explained.” Thanks ever so much, Mel, for all the laughs, that is. Why don't we start with your concluding paragraph, in which you explain the process known as completion (follow the link to the Schlumberger Oilfield glossary entry on the topic)? Mel said,
There’s a possibility that no branch of science suffers more at the hands of self-appointed freelancers than nutrition. Every darned fad diet that comes down the pike is the subject of thousands of glowing blog posts, each carefully tailored to suck in eyeballs. Never mind that three months later, the same "nutrition" or "fitness" blogger will be posting another glowing review of a different fad diet…
Those freelancers also hit the pay-for-hits sites,
too. Here’s a little piece of rubbish published by someone who calls
himself Emge over at DailyTwoCents, an article on “Benefits of Drinking Beer.”¹ We’ll forgive
the writer for the spelling and grammatical mistakes since English is not his first language,
but we won't forgive the misinformation:
You probably already knew this, but for those who didn't here's a truism we've noticed many a time here at the Antisocial Network headquarters: whether the topic is climate change, vaccines, pollution, or any other complex question; pretty soon some politician (or troll) is going to utter a sentence beginning with that now-famous phrase, "I'm not a scientist but..." When you hear those words, you can be fairly certain you're about to be transported to the Scientific Illiteracy Zone. What's perhaps saddest is that way too many people live there 24/7/365.
