The problem with all this is that even at the very core, the group of gods, this site is a distributed effort and very much a grown wilderness. Functionality has been added and some has also been abandoned over time, and content - even central content like FAQs and tutorials - is produced along the way by anyone who has the capability, time and mood to contribute.

And that's the problem right there, basically: the site is very community centered, more so than nearly anything else on the web. It's more of a wiki than a simple forum. That is the reason it is so confusing at first. Getting involved will not be an easy task for a newcomer, even given more documentation. I do agree that more documentation could and probably should be available, but offering it would be a bit like documenting which drawers in your room you put what stuff in - a lot of it is a matter of habit and some of ritual, so will necessarily seem obscure.

You simply have to take in the spirit of the site and its community for a while before it all makes sense the way it should - much like Perl itself can seem arcane at first, so does its community. Of course, that doesn't in any way constitute an excuse for insufficient documentation, but it does mean that just calling for "more documentation" is not going to change a whole lot.

Maybe any newcomers reading this would like to make a concerted effort of noting things down that confused them, or of things they found very valuable when they discovered them but which they had missed initially? That would help the more seasoned members provide answers on the one hand and pick out which parts are in particular need for documentation on the other.

As always, precise questions are more helpful to all parties involved than generic ones.

Makeshifts last the longest.