What self-respecting programmer doesn't idle in the freenode channels of the software packages he or she is learning? You immerse yourself in the community and ask intelligent questions; if anything, just to see what the community is like before you commit your project to depend on something written by either douchebags or morons.
I did just that with the twisted community and I found them a good bunch.
You're on to something about community. A healthy OSS project has a healthy community. Maintaining a painless ramp-up with thoroughly organized documentation goes a long way towards nurturing an expansive, and inclusive community. By expansive and inclusive community, I do indeed mean that copy+paste jockeys can hack their way through it. If copypasters can get something done, then usually it means the defaults are usable, the common use-cases demonstrated, and the examples are up-to-date. When all of those conditions are met, it also means that the inertia to just trying something out is WAY less, and the interest:effort in just "screwing around" with it is now much better, which is the first step in getting some programmers (like me) to give something a try.
If I needed what twisted had to offer, I'd give it a try. But if I'm just screwing around (an exploratory phase that sometimes leads to much deeper commitment) then I'm going to go with whatever is easiest that seems to have sufficient depth.
Anyway, I have plenty of self-respect, thank you. I am sure there are others like me.
I did just that with the twisted community and I found them a good bunch.