I flagged a question as "rude" because it used the letters that spelled a choice Anglo-Saxon expletive beginning with f as the four elements of an example set. Seemed unnecessary and deliberately vulgar, so I flagged it.
The status of the flag is "disputed". What does that really mean? Is the dispute among the moderators as to whether the question is rude? Or did the OP dispute the flag? Or what?
Also, is my rude threshold set too low?
There are two ways a moderator can act on a "rude or abusive" flag that they disagree with:
They both have the effect of removing all "rude or abusive" flags from the post, and undoing the automatic downvote associated with each. But while former obviously declines the flag, the latter only disputes it. (When a flag is declined you'll additionally get a note about this in your flagging history.)
(The above also holds for "spam" flags.)
In Stack Exchange nomenclature having a flag disputed flag is not as strong as having it declined. In fact there are some automatic mechanisms which dispute flags. For example, any edit to a post will dispute all "very low quality" flags on it. I do not think there are any negative effects to having flags disputed, whereas having too many declined flags may lead to a temporary flagging ban.
Putting this all together, the flag was disputed because a moderator didn't think that the post warranted a "rude or abusive" flag, and decided to not outright decline it.
That being said, I don't believe that the "rude or offensive" flag was warranted on the post you flagged. Sure a "bad word" could be read off of it, but the post itself could have been simply edited (or an edit suggested) to remove this possibility without damaging the post at all. In general I feel that the "rude or abusive" flags should be reserved for posts whose entire intent appears to be being rude or abusive. These flags are really intended to stop the user from posting more, and at a minimum come with pretty hefty penalties (-100 reputation if enough such flags are raised on a post).
In cases where a post has perhaps objectionable content but is otherwise meaningful, the objectionable content can usually be edited out without harming the mathematical intent of the post. (If the post author and others get into an "edit war" over the objectionable content, a flag will automatically be raised to summon site moderators to the post.) In other cases a moderator-only "other" flag could be raised, or even pop in to the Math Mods' Office chat room.
I, too, am amazed by obvious problems that get "disputed" when flagged. Since the moderators are of good faith, though, we must admit that sometimes they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of flags raised by the community, so some of these flags simply don't get the necesary attention.
In this very specific example, though, I believe that one moderator simply did not perceive the expletive, which from your description was not exactly obvious for somebody doing only a quick mental parsing of that post (and moderators cannot afford to waste too much time on any single flag). Next time, flag as "rude" only those posts that are explicitly, manifestly so (such as insults or threats addressed to other users). If some vulgar language is buried inside the post, it is better to choose to flag it as "in need of moderator intervention" and precisely describe the problem in your own words, simplifying the task of the moderator.
On the other hand, since moderators are so busy, honestly, why didn't you try to edit the question yourself and replace that word? Why do so many users believe that "civic duty" means to only signal something to the "powers that be" and expect that "somebody up there" should fix it, instead of fixing the problems themselves when it is in their power? Ask for moderator-specific powers only in problems requiring moderator-specific powers - which the one that you mention does not seem to be.
