It's weird for people to try and set the record straight when you mention them by name?

Can you explain what you find so weird? From what I can tell, the GP is adding useful information using his firsthand experience.

Did they? No evidence and worded to suggest Steve didn’t experience it, that counts as useful information now?

I think you may have misread it. The original claim is:

> This resulted in a nonzero number of donors believing they were funding the work of people like Steve Klabnik, Aaron Patterson, and Sarah Mei, when in fact only Andre was being paid at the time.

Steve said "that didn't happen to me" and then Aaron said "that definitely did happen to me". Seems pretty relevant. I don't think he was claiming steve was wrong in not having heard that, but Aaron was saying it did happen to him, so the claim is true.

(and in terms of evidence, do you want him to share the emails he got? A first hand account seems enough evidence to me)

Seems pretty unambiguous, and a good reason to chime in.