It is completely insane for users to have to piece all this together themselves. It shows complete disregard for the users and community to not update the website, whitepaper, or even put out a simple changelist when the code is hacked and hardforked.

Get the developers involved.
Publicly ask them to write and sign the important wiki entries.
Have them explain how the features and calculations work, in detail.
This is standard practice EVERYWHERE else.

Unless it's officially released by the developers, how can anyone be sure of it is accurate and current?