Open source maintainer suspended 8 days with no reason, only automated replies to every ticket

[Brosski224]

Posting on behalf of my friend and fellow developer, since his account is suspended and he can't post here himself.

Account: @evinjohnn
Ticket: #4793970 (plus three follow up tickets)
Suspended since: September 25, 2026

Evin is the developer of Natively, an open source desktop assistant for meetings, lectures and other live conversations (evinjohnn/natively-cluely-ai-assistant, Natively-AI-assistant/natively-cluely-ai-assistant). The project has thousands of users and receives community support through GitHub Sponsors.

On September 25 his account was suspended with no email and no notice. The only sign was a message at login citing a Terms of Service violation.

What has happened since:

He filed a reinstatement request the same day.
He received the standard automated reply saying his account was "flagged by our abuse-detection systems for manual review" and asking how he plans to use GitHub.
He answered in full each time, describing the repositories, releases, Actions builds, Sponsors, and the AI coding tools and tokens he uses on his own repos, and offered to change anything that conflicts with policy.
He received the exact same template again on September 30 and October 1, under different names, and nothing after answering it.

The impact:

His account is the only owner of the Natively-AI-assistant organization, so for 8 days nobody has been able to publish a release or manage the org. Users can't receive updates. His Sponsors payout for this month didn't arrive, and that's money he lives on. He also signs into services like Resend and Deepgram with GitHub, which run the project's API.

He isn't asking for special treatment. He's asking for a human to look at the case and tell him what was flagged. If something in his repos or automation breaks the rules, he'll fix it the same day.

This seems to be a common pattern (see
#194579, where several users describe the same automated reply followed by silence). Is there any way for an open source maintainer stuck in this loop to get an actual review?

@github-staff, any help getting ticket #4793970 in front of a reviewer would be really appreciated. 🙏

[Dev-MrCool]

I've been using Natively, and it's been really helpful. I hope GitHub reviews this case soon and restores access to the account so development and updates can resume. Looking forward to seeing Natively continue to grow. Wishing you the best! 🙌

[Dami99-b]

Upvoted and adding my support here. As a regular user of Natively, it's really frustrating to see an active account locked out without explanation or a human review. Hoping a real person from GitHub can step in and look into this manually.

[baidikgithub]

A few quick tips while he waits:

• Reply only in the original ticket (#4793970) instead of opening new ones. Duplicates can slow things down.
• Mention at the top that he's the sole org owner and that Sponsors payouts are blocked.
• Ask Resend and Deepgram support to add an email login, so the project's API access isn't tied to GitHub.
• Once he's back, add a second org owner so this can't freeze the project again.

[mayo-byte07]

This automated loop is incredibly frustrating, especially when it freezes someone's livelihood and project infrastructure.

Baidik's advice is spot on—stick entirely to the original ticket (#4793970) so his case doesn't get pushed to the back of the queue as a duplicate, and definitely prioritize getting alternative logins set up for Deepgram and Resend right away.

Since standard support is just hitting him with template replies, try escalating this outside of the ticketing system. Reach out to GitHub's Developer Relations team or staff members on X/Twitter. Briefly explain that an open-source maintainer's Sponsors payout and org access are locked behind an automated loop, and provide the ticket number. Making a little polite noise publicly is often the fastest way to get a ticket pulled out of the automated abuse-detection queue and in front of an actual human reviewer.

Hopefully, this gets sorted out for Evin quickly. Once he is back in, setting up a fallback org owner is a must.