I don't think anyone is vilifying the sender. The intentions maybe have been good, but perhaps a different method could have brought better results.
I'm inclined to agree, the senders name isn't even mentioned.
The reason it is suspicious to me is that no one checked with the moderators/admin to see if it was ok, or to let us know what was going on...and the message doesn't really explain things too much...
Another approach would probably had better results