I agree with the others. This was bad moderation and the thread should not have been closed. Sure, post #2 by Ex Tank was inappropriate and should probably have been mod noted, but there was nothing at all wrong with the OP in terms of any of the board rules, express or implied, and the thread could have had some useful discussion. The rule against “sexualizing” another poster has absolutely no relevance here.
Funny, I was thinking when I saw this post here in ATMB that we were at risk of having overzealous moderation stifle reasonable discussion, but little did I suspect it would come less than 24 hours later. Emphasis mine:
There is some implicit tension between free speech banning bigoted arguments. (Using “bigoted” to encompass racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.) Every community needs to decide where they stand on this. I don’t moderate the areas where it is usually relevant, but feel that “don’t be a jerk” should outweigh “open discussion” in the forums i do moderate (IMHO, Cafe Society, MPSIMS, QZ, site feedback).