Just LGTM on Pull Request comments? You're failing as a dev

Where I work, we only open pull requests when we feel the code must be reviewed. When I open a PR, I trust my colleagues to carefully review the code and they make you prove your code is fine if in doubt or let you know if there's something to improve / that could be improved.

If they write lgtm, they mean it. Lgtm does not mean "I didn't review the changes".

It's not specific to my team, I've also seen it when contributing to random OSS project.

I don't want people to try hard to come up with something to say, if it looks good (or even good enough, often) let's just merge and move on.

Now, sure, if a PR is open, let's carefully review it and comment if needed. But deciding that lgtm is bad seems unwise and looks like cargo culting.

If someone writes lgtm and did not carefully review / raise something that could be improved, that's the thing to fix. If needed.

Fix the disease, not a symptom.

LGTM when things look good makes PRs efficient, it encourages opening PRs and thus getting good reviews when needed.