[horsawlarway]

I disagree.

A direct comment is a lot more useful - both because I know it's not a bot, but also because it gives me a touch point for another interested party, who might be able/interested in helping.

ex: "Any update on this" can easily be followed with "Not at the moment, we have a work in progress [here], but could use additional hands" or "We're still trying to understand all the use-cases for this, what are you trying to accomplish" or any number of other relevant and useful things.

Personally - I enjoy having some human interaction as motivation every now and then, and it's easy enough to just ignore if the answer is "I'm busy".