There are certainly vital roles for Developers who want to remain technically focused at the complete expense of human interaction, but (like it or not) it will limit the opportunities open to them.
I would suggest that acting as the public face of a gatekeeping process is the wrong role for anyone who doesn't like dealing with people and/or has trouble interacting with them politely or helpfully within the time available.
Perhaps the role would be better split between two people: a public-facing person and a purely technical gatekeeper. The gatekeeper then only has to deal with the public-facing person, who can provide potential contributors with help, assistance, and common human decency, as well as acting as a first level filter. That seems like a win-win for everyone.
Edit: Just spotted that avivo already suggested this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8922331
"Syntax error at line 57" sounds very harsh. Why can't the compiler say "dear developer, it shames me to point it out but you might have slipped in a typo on line 57. Your continued effort in straightening it out would be much appreciated" I would be much more motivated to continue debugging.
What I am getting at, maybe the maintainer sees his role more technical than social. He considers his job to maintain the code base, not the user base. I actually think that's OK, and submitters shouldn't take a brief response personal.