As a developer, I tend to look at a project's Github page first, more particularly at the README in order to find resources, figure out how to run the project, learn more about the status of the project. As long as the last commit isn't years or months old, there's an indication that somebody is working on it and it's not an abandoned project.

In terms of wanting to develop within a framework or contributing to a project, you want to have some type of documentation laying out how the project is designed, laid out, use cases, examples, etc. Naturally looking at Steem's README, you are guided to the developer's portal so that's at least working.

The current introduction fails as it just jumps into resources without explaining what Steem is from a high level perspective which other libraries and projects I have worked on have elaborated significantly on. Here's an example of decent documentation and you'll notice a clear difference in the effort taken to allow new users to get opportunities to understand what they might potentially be working with.

Most developers don't understand blockchain and most developers will struggle on understanding a particular architecture or design without documentation and diagrams to educate them along the way. The dumber you assume the developers reading your documentation are, the better and richer the documentation will tend to be. And the more likely you will be able to attract new talent and probably inexperienced talent to your project.