Right now I see three pull requests: one that adds an echo statement to a build script, another that deletes a file they claim is not needed and one that renames a directory and changes some paths in the README.
In this link's case, if pine64 want to get people excited about that EVB and start hacking with it, it sounds like an efficient strategy. Whatever the real value of the commits are, it's the users who are committed :)
At least, in this case, they ask for contributions on a repos they own.
Sure, some people aim at low hanging fruit. But remember that this challenge was just announced. Actual quality contributions take time.
It'll be interesting to check again in a month or so, and see what has been committed.
Sure you can translate documentation or fix grammar, but otherwise there isn't much you can or even should do without a board to test your changes on. "It compiles: ship it" level contributions are not helpful in general
It should be possible to start documenting what it does, start investigating how it's structured, how it interacts with the HW, etc. This would help understanding the HW, and so on.