Seems like a completely appropriate way to handle things if you're still on Github. You said yourself the spam drove you off.
They could let people who are proven not to be spammers open PRs directly.
Yes, indeed. But I still stand by the gatekeeping though.
Sadly, it's a tragedy due to how popular github (and similar services) have become.
These sites were supposed to be by developers for developers.
Seems like a completely appropriate way to handle things if you're still on Github. You said yourself the spam drove you off.
They could let people who are proven not to be spammers open PRs directly.