Hi, I'm aware of the official meaning of the acronym, but my usage was based on my belief that in everyday language, people use it to mean "vanished" or "disappeared".

I'm aware of the connotations that this has in the terms of Open-source, but was not in any way implying that the person had an obligation to continue work on this project (quite the opposite, I simply wanted their go-ahead/approval for me to maintain the project myself, before just going ahead and making changes to __their personal Github repo__). I was using the term in a way that I thought added a slight, humorous hyperbole to get people's attention on Hacker News in the hope of getting their advice.

I would certainly not have used this term to the maintainer in question, for the reasons you describe: I would not want to imply they had any obligation. I have no problem with a maintainer not wanting to continue any further work on a project they lead, I just think it would be helpful if they left instructions for how other maintainers should proceed, or at least respond to requests for clarification.