> That seems like a very good way for bad documentation to get out, damaging the project.

Read the code, try your best to understand it, and then get the documentation reviewed by someone who does know the software well. This works for code, too. Bonus points: Explicitly enlist feedback ("Anything I'm missing here? Any edge cases I forgot to note? Is my understanding of this correct?")

> I for one would be hesitant to tempt the wrath of the Great Unseen Masters that make open source software with potentially inane questions.

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

But if you're making an effort to contribute, that already counts for a lot. There might be some gruff redirection towards more effective means of contributing, if you're being a significant time sink and not helping that much, but hopefully that's a win/win in the end.

Overtime, common repetitive questions will surface in conversation. Identify these patterns, write up FAQ/documentation and submit them via the pull-request process. The Great Unseen Masters will typically be grateful and respond with dumping their brain or corrections as they would normally do so in a code review. Eventually, over time, this will build up into something they can point newbies towards to RTFM so the community does not burn out answering the same questions over and over.

I have to say I agree. My only question in the chat would be "where do I find the documentation outside of this chat?"