GitHub stars are a measure of how many people would like someone else to maintain this project.
@alicefrieren Please explain?

@flesh I'm not @alicefrieren but see if this meme helps

It circulated for a while during events like the Log4j vulnerability where CEOs were e-mailing the independent maintainer demanding to know when a fix would be ready:

(Source: the now deleted @\VniVersVs_Games on then Twitter)

@jhwgh1968 @alicefrieren Ah, so "I want this maintained, but not by me". Makes sense.