This looks like a classic case of miscommunication between a user, the community, and a mod.
The mod didn't do anything wrong. A situation was diffused in the quickest way possible.
The original poster didn't ask the question incorrectly.
#A Woman's perspective?
I've discussed this situation at length with my girlfriend who is a fellow lover of retrocomputers last night. She requested that I post this answer here on her behalf as she felt very strongly about this situation.
#Who is the final authority on the definition of Father?
jwzumwalt, Chenmunka♦, Ross Ridge, wizzwizz4♦, and LateralTerminal are not the final authority on the definition of "Father," but you know who is? The dictionary!
That's right the dictionary, the thing we used to use to end these silly debates.
merriam-webster defines Father #2 as : forefather (ex: the founding fathers)
what is forefather defined as? Well I'm glad you asked. It has 2 definitions.
1 : ancestor
2 : a person of an earlier period and common heritage
Notice the complete lack of any gender identification by definition? I'm glad you did.
What that's still not enough for you? That's fine Father has more definitions that prove you're mistaken.
merriam-webster defines Father #5 as
a : one that originates or institutes (ex: the father of modern science)
b : source (ex:the sun, the father of warmth and light —Lena M. Whitney)
Do I detect gender neutral language here? Well definitely I do! In fact most of the definitions are gender neutral! Wow! The things we can learn in the dictionary. It's black and white people.
#Was this an abuse of mod powers?
###No.
wizzwizz4♦ takes their volunteer position here very seriously. If anything his fault was trying to please everyone. When you see that many flags on a question it's his job as a mod to put out that fire. Looking at the comments wizzwizz4♦ he gathered the community didn't like the phrasing. His job was to facilitate peace at the interest of the community.
Who's really at fault here are the ones flagging the question (no offense to commenters) for what is defined as ignorant feminist extremist reasons.
As a strong independent woman who wants equality for all, to abolish objectifying women, etc... this is extremely troubling.
What we have here is a case of users not mods pushing to censoring freedom of speech, pedanticism, and pointless yet harmful political correctness.
#Stackexchange rules
The rules stipulate a safe friendly non-hostile environment.
The issue is users are abusing the rules to draw an arbitrary line that they define as sexism.
As mods I urge you all to be vigilant against sexism however realize your power are strong and throughout site growth you may arbitrarily define non-sexism as sexism. That is a deep philosophical issue and an issue of freedom of speech. It also encourages users to attack questions and create noise and spam. It's the users that abusing the system and creating problems around what would be a great question.
I believe our mods should be more vigilant against false flags. Just because there are 25 moderator flags does not 100% guarantee an issue.
Remember this was a hot network question meaning that it could easily attract 25 extremists from other communities on SE. They do not need to represent the voice of RetroSE or SE in general. They don't get to redefine the English language.
Mostly I'm disappointed in the users who flagged the question.
I'm also really disappointed in Chenmunka♦'s answer " Not everyone is fluent enough in English to appreciate all the vagaries of the language."
We should never coddle non native speakers by robbing them the opportunity to learn the nuances of our language at the sake of their feelings. That's the worst possible reason you could possibly give considering you agreed that father was used in a non gender way. If I'm a guest at a Spanish speaking forum I expect to learn the language the way it's used by native speakers my feelings created out of ignorance shouldn't affect the native Spanish users.
