an interesting feature would be to have either Github or a third party "ping" projects with issues to see if the author is still a) responsive and b) interested

an interesting feature would be to have either Github or a third party "ping" projects with issues to see if the author is still a) responsive and b) interested in maintaining the project. obviously it would be best if Github itself implemented this, potentially along with an automated process to indicate that the author is no longer responsive/interested in maintaining the project (and potentially facilitate a transfer of "authority"). a third party system trying to determine the same might be ignored as spam by the author, and multiple third party systems (potentially jockeying for supremacy in the space) might exacerbate this. if folks think this would be valuable, i might pursue this as a project (after petitioning Github to do it themselves)