Ceiling fixture

Here is a picture of a light that is in our basement. It looks like a wagon wheel or something, but it's screwed up. It only turns on and off by screwing in and unscrewing the lightbulbs. Can anyone tell me by the shot of the wiring what is wrong with it?? Any ideas perhaps?

http://www.freepgs.com/conjureous/swede/swede6.html

 

Okay, for starters it is not code compliant. The non-metallic cable is being used improperly. NM must closely follow the building structure or framing members. In other words, it cannot be left to hang loosely.

Next is the exposed junction box. The splices must be closed up inside the box, either with a blank cover or a fixture mounted over it.

At any rate, the existing installation, while unsafe, should still work as is. Is there a wall switch that controls this? If so, it's possible the switch has gone bad and isn't opening the connection when you turn it off.

 

There are many switches in the basement that do not seem to turn anything on or off, so we aren't sure. There is however a wire running out of the fixture, going across the ceiling and into the top of a wall where there is a switch. That might be the one they intended to use, but it didn't work. At any rate, we are aware, even without any electrical knowlege that this is not the way it should be wired, we just aren't sure exactly how it SHOULD be wired. lol
The wire appears to come out of the ceiling, then hooks to the fixture, then comes out of the other side and runs to the wall where it (I guess) runs to a switch. Make any sense? Probably not, but that's what I see when I look at it. Hope that helps.

 

You need to turn off the breaker for this light and open the switch box. Tell us all the cables and where the wires from each cable are connected.

Since there is only one cable at the light the switch should have at least 2 cables. The whites should be connected together and the blacks should be connected to the switch.