I am both an open source maintainer and contributor. This is absolutely despicable behavior. You are purposefully wasting the time of a contributor for no other reason than your own fear of saying “no.”
If you’re not going to merge something, just ficking say so.
If you've read the thread, the strategy you're replying to is about a workplace scenario where outright rejection is, for whatever reason, forbidden; not an open source situation where "no" is readily available.
It makes even less sense in a work context either. This behavior will permanently alienate this user & potential customer. I’ve seen this exact scenario play out many times before.
If you’re not going to merge something, just ficking say so.