Wooden Screen Doors for Dummies

Removing screen molding from a wooden screen door

Perhaps the surest sign that one of our candidates for DotD is unfamiliar with his or her topic is a utter and complete failure to understand the process or the problem. For example, if you ask someone how to throw a curve ball and he starts talking about quarterbacks and spirals, you know you've asked the wrong person! Freelancers who get it completely wrong while trying to pick up extra cash are a pox on the internet, and eHow's Emily Patterson proved our point when she posted "How to Rescreen a Wooden Screen Door" at HomeSteady.com.

Browser Cookies for Dummies... Again

Browser cookies

In case you haven't noticed, Americans have a weight problem. Maybe it's because they don't know what to do with cookies.Wait, not that kind of cookies: a surprising number of Americans don't seem to be able to figure out what to do with the cookies that web browsers (well, actually, websites you visit with your browser) leave all on your computer. That's probably why people type searches like "How to Remove Cookies With Windows 7"¹ into their favorite search engine. Sadly, one of the first "answers" they'll get is an eHow.com article (now filed under ItStillWorks by the folks at Leaf) that Keith Patrick scribbled down late one night...

What Causes Earthquakes for Dummies

All about earthquakes

Our research staff all seem to be convinced that scientific illiteracy is on the upswing. It amazes them – or at least some of them – that so many people have attended at least some college, but so many of them seem to have skipped any classes considered remotely scientific. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, almost 60% of U. S. citizens have attended some college, but our staffers maintain that you can't tell it from the freelancers out there... Whatever the case, today's DotD nominee isn't American (he's Thai), but he does claim to be "an online leading expert in education." We beg to differ, however, based on what Kum Martin posted in "What Causes an Earthquake?" for EzineArticles.com.

Useless Information about Plantation Shutters for Dummies

plantation shutters

Our DotD candidates fall into two rough categories. Most of them are people we've caught giving incorrect information or instructions, but there are some who just provide, for lack of a better term, useless information. Most of the latter seem to inhabit Seekyt.com, where all they do is shill for some company. A few, however, can be found on the more traditional sites, HubPages and the Leaf Group family (formerly eHow.com). Today's nominee is a diving instructor and cable guy, Ed English, whom we found holding forth on "Do-It-Yourself Plantation Shutters."¹

The Lowdown on Oil for Dummies

drilling rig on the hunt for oil

It's been a while since the staff geologist came out of hiding to chastise people for their stupidity about the oil business. Perhaps that's because, with gasoline prices at ten-year lows, no one's been grumbling much about Big Oil. That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't plenty of stupidity to be had at internet content farms. For example, take a gander at the rubbish eHowian Frederick S. Blackmon published at the mother site in a post called "Interesting Facts on Oil."¹

Choosing Contour Intervals for Dummies

Contour interval, shown on map legend

The staff here at the Antisocial Network long ago realized a simple truth: if you don't know anything about a topic, it's pretty likely that you not only don't know how to answer a question, you don't even understand what the person is asking. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of "answers" written by the contributors to the mother lode of misinformation, eHow.com, have precisely that problem – and today's DotD nominee is no different. Returning awardee Soren Bagley was obviously confused by the question "How to Calculate Contour Intervals,"¹ and his post (now at Sciencing.com) makes that pretty clear.

Broken Glass Cooktop Repair for Dummies

Glass cooktop

According to the research staff, most of the DotD candidates they find seem to have started out wanting to be useful, and then gotten greedy. That's probably why so many of them start writing in their field of expertise (assuming they have one) and then branch out into topics about which they know darned near nothing. take, for instance, eHowian Melanie Fleury, who penned the pretty useless post "How to Fix a Cracked Glass Cook Top" (now available at SFGate.com, thanks to Leaf Group's nichemania).