Disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion.
Thanks for starting this discussion. I agree that there are cultural differences and that’s why I think it’s important to openly talk about this. Having a shared understanding of “what to select when” helps everyone to collaborate more efficiently and evolve the open source project further.
I propose the following usage:
- Comment: to add suggestions, ask general questions, give tips/hints on the change, propose follow-up changes. IMHO the default type of feedback that you give to open source contributions. IMHO we should encourage interaction and discussion on PRs.
- Request changes: to block a PR if it would break currently supported features/workflows/automation. Example: Foreman/Katello cannot use Salt anymore to configure hosts. Not valid for things like “Package Actions implemented for Yum content, not yet for Deb content”. This should not be used for personal preference or out of scope requests.
- Approve: to signal that this change is OK as is.
Regarding labels on GitHub: I have no strong opinion (yet).
Two good sources on how to contribute and review PRs which I see as the main ways to collaborate: Foreman :: Contribute and foreman-documentation/CONTRIBUTING.md at master · theforeman/foreman-documentation · GitHub
Slightly unrelated, but crucial nevertheless: IMHO we should be mindful when to request changes/block PRs; and we should actively help (new) contributors to achive their goals which normally ends with a merged PR.