[mook]

I believe that's backwards — it requires active effort from the maintainer (who may be on vacation) to prevent closing, when the ball is in the maintainer's court (to check if it's a reasonable ticket). The process described elsewhere in this subthread, where the maintainer has put a label on the issue before it can be auto-closed, is better (since the next action is on the reporter); that must only happen if the reporter hadn't responded, though.