I do not think ben was being rude, I call rude an action designed to be insulting. He was just busy and had a finite amount of time to spend and he set his priorites accordingly. If a person was not serious enough to send a second email asking to help then they were probably not too serious. An analog is the politican's filter on mail(not email) vs. phone calls, Letters require much more effort on the writers part then phoncalls so they give more weight to letters.
Remember recruting developers takes time that can be spent on coding. And if they are not serious enough to send a second message how commited are they about the project?
I have come to the conclusion over the years that lots of people are more thin skined then is needed, or I could have much thicker skin then is normal. I think the above remark(wait for second email) was just a statement of a practical method to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Also the Idea that a person who I do not know sends me a email places any moral oblagation on me to respond is just not true. If I choose to respond it is my choice. If I choose to never respond that is my choice. And finaly if I choose to apply some filter to decide if I am going to respond that is also my choice. When dealing with email the people I know come first the people I do not know come next, if there is any time left for them. This may offend some people, but that does not make it any less true IMO.
