There’s always work to be done outside of the realm of code bashing. Documentation can always be improved. A new user’s perspective is sometimes needed to appreciate this, since developers and long-time users consider everything obvious. Bug reports and pull requests on any project’s documentation are just as valuable as those for the actual programs' sources.
Fielding questions on the mailing lists is also helpful. This lets other people to focus on coding issues while allowing the original poster to get some information at the same time. It’s quite a relief to open that mailbox and find that someone else has already handled it successfully.