The system is not the problem. It's the solicitation.
I agree, if you agree with me can you upvote my comment? Thanks.
I don't get it. Why is the solicitation a problem?
It's a different thing if he says that you must STAR before you can access the repo.
I think it's a merit thing. If your content is truly worthwhile, is there a need to solicit/ask for stars? Researchers don't beg people to "like/comment/subscribe/star/tweet/etc" in their abstract, it feels odd to ask for a star in this manner.
The way I understood parent was that liking, commenting and subscribing was okay to ask for, but asking for stars was too much.
Re-reading it now, I'm actually not so sure what parent was complaining about.
It's not the same for me. Stars have a long history of been used as "Favorites", so it's more than a simple "like" in FB terms.