> The AI here was honestly acting 100% within the realm of “standard OSS discourse.”

Regrettably, yes. But I'd like not to forget that this goes both ways. I've seen many instances of maintainers hand-waving at a Code of Conduct with no clear reason besides not liking the fact that someone suggested that the software is bad at fulfilling its stated purpose.

> maybe we could shift the experience credentialing from “I wrote this code” to “I wrote a clear piece explaining why this code should have been merged.”

People should be willing to stand by the code as if they had written it themselves; they should understand it in the way that they understand their own code.

While the AI-generated PR messages typically still stick out like a sore thumb, it seems very unwise to rely on that continuing indefinitely. But then, if things do get to the point where nobody can tell, what's the harm? Just licensing issues?