Can you link to one of these times a maintainer said something like that?
I did some research and think this link is enough https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/1137.
The users in that topic then continue the discussion in all of its aspects, expecting the maintainer to engage with them. I can imagine it feels to the maintainers as an energy-sucking discussion.
IMHO, you're not shaming the maintainers, you're shaming the community here.