As I wrote in another thread, the state of the docs worries me too. I
take it that the suggestion to study the source was not serious, and
perhaps it is indeed a matter of priorities. As a new user I have a strong
opinion that the documentation should be a higher priority than it seems
to be. All the arguments about how many person-hours it would take and
the huge task it is, in my eyes, only furthers the point that it is not
considered as important as doing "real development". I consider the docs
a core part of the project, and the code another part, hence the disagreement in regards to the
priorities. Pro-bono or not is not an issue, since time is spent on the project in some form. Writing features that few people know about and are able to use is only half of the dev work.
But I get it that documenting is a pain, and seemingly frivolous work. The separate manuals may have been good, but they look fragmented and there is no unified docs to go to when in doubt. And having one place to go is even easier to maintain than many. The wiki is a nice idea, but it needs much more rigour to function as real docs.
Some suggestions. I'm assuming some form of wiki-like website that can be the contextgarden or (preferably) another official docs/wiki/wiki-like site.