Do not think ISIS fighting vehicles are appropriate here

[Peter Sanders]

Hi

I was surprised and disappointed that a post in the regular email advising tool of the week, included a reference to and an image of an ISIS fighting vehicle. I do not think this is appropriate for this web site.

Kind regards
Peter

[Jon]

I appreciate the feedback. I agree it's a bit controversial.

Along these lines, we've previously covered homemade Syrian weapons, and homemade prisoner weapons. International Harvester towed mine planter also attracted some concern.

In-depth discussions of technology will always touch upon war, although I understand that a topic like "Homemade Fighting Vehicles of WWI" would certainly be less controversial than the same topic about ISIS. The image drop from Tanks-Encyclopedia.com was really unprecedented though, with hundreds of homemade vehicles categorized by make/model of vehicle and specific conflict. It's admittedly jarring, but it's also intellectually valid, and a good example of "real news". This is a pretty mature forum, whose members I think have the ability to gain technical or cultural understanding from even controversial media.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your suggestions. I have a huge backlog of hundreds of good Tool Talk topics to post. Let me know what topics you would like to see.