Roof Vents for Dummies

Roof Vent with Flashing

One dead giveaway that our DotD candidates are merely cribbing information from somewhere else is the omission of critical steps – either because they run out of room, have met their minimum word count, or because they just don't realize that the omitted steps are important. Take, for example, eHow.com contributor Carson Barrett, who thought he was helping when he posted "How to Install Bath Vents Through a Roof"¹ at HomeSteady.com. Never mind that Carson misinterpreted "bath vents" to mean "exhaust fan vent"...

Building Stairs for Dummies

Interior stairway

We've always figured that one of the reasons so many houses have just a single story is that any idiot can frame a wall, but it takes a craftsman to build stairs. Ba-dump-bump... But seriously, stairs are a true pain in the tuchus to build. If you'd like to see an idiot's approach to stair building, however, you don't need to look any further than Liz O'Donnell and the article she posted at LovetoKnow.com she claimed would tell you "How to Build Stairs."¹ Unfortunately, she lied...

O'Donnell, an interior decorator – not exactly what we'd think of when asked for a profession that knows a lot about framing carpentry – vomited out 574 words in her article. She opened by telling her readers that...

VW Beetles for Dummies

Type 1 VW Beetle

In case you kids out there didn't know it, the car you call a VW Beetle today is not the original. No, Volkswagen started selling the car known variously as a "bug" and a "Beetle" 'w-a-a-ay back in the 1950s (in the USA, anyway), and stopped selling them in the '70s. The ones built in the 2000s are better known as "New Beetles"; where the originals are called, by people in the know, Type 1 Volkswagens. Unfortunately for anyone asking "How to Identify VW Bug Types"¹ on the 'net, eHow's Justin Schamotta is obviously not "in the know."

Estimating Concrete Blocks for Dummy Masons

Laying concrete block

Lots of statements can be taken more than one way, depending on attitudes and context among other clues. Heck, that's the whole reason emoticons were invented... Questions, however, are generally more clear-cut; assuming you have the background necessary to answer the question. That's not always the case among Leaf Group (formerly Demand Media Studios or DMS¹) freelancers: without proper knowledge the dumber asses among them produced some pretty stupid output... like the Hunker.com article "How to Calculate the Number of Concrete Blocks in a Wall," which contributor Tom Kantain tackled.

Door Strikes for Dummies

door latch strike plate

Many of the DotD nominees our staffers turn up are just ordinary people who figured they could make a few bucks writing for some website that would either pay them a flat fee or royalties for their work. We have no problem with that, as long as those ordinary people shared their experience or knowledge or if, in a few cases, they perform quality research at authoritative resources. On the other hand we have the ones who perform a perfunctory copy-reword-paste on a topic about which they know nothing and move on: they're the ones who get awards... The ones like English BA Alec Preble, who visited "Repositioning a Strike Plate"¹ on eHow.com.

Hand Tools for the Dummy Woodworker

Woodworking hand tools

It's been a while since we featured some of the rubbish that makes its way onto the internet from HubPages.com. Shame on us – that's one of the few still-active sources of  internet stupidification, even if contributors aren't rolling in dough any more. That doesn't mean that there isn't still plenty of crap in their "hubs," though; crap like "Woodworking: Complete List of Hand Tools" as envisioned by Kenneth C. Agudo. We'll try not to slap Kenny around much for his grammar mistakes since English probably isn't his first language, although we wouldn't be surprised if he's one of the customer-support people in some Singapore-based call center...

Octagons for Geometry Dummies

Octagon geometry

One sign of a freelancer who's bullshitting readers, especially at a place where he or she is supposedly "answering questions," is an obvious inability to explain the reasoning behind an approach within the "answer." Our research team members see that quite often at the niche sites where old eHow.com articles go to die (compliments of Leaf Group), and today's no exception. Leafer Chance E. Gartneer (wonder what his real name is) screwed the pooch in "How to Find the Length of the Sides of an Octagon Based on the Diameter," which nowadays can be found over at Sciencing.com.