The reactionary way to respond to this seems to be to think this is somehow authoritarian, internet point gathering or just petty. What some might not realize

The reactionary way to respond to this seems to be to think this is somehow authoritarian, internet point gathering or just petty. What some might not realize is the sheer volume of requests that maintainers of popular open source software projects have competing for their attention on a daily basis (I do not speak from experience but from reading/listening to reports from those that do). Adding a bit of friction to any of those attention grabbing things, like here through the use of an bot, is a good way of reducing that noise at least somewhat. It isn't a perfect system, but it is the one this maintainer choose to use.