Whatever is being discussed here about the HowToBuild's, I hope it is not about taking it back to some "generic" instructions that require expert C++ development knowledge to be able to figure out.  That's probably where the idea that "no one reads it" came from because, sure, if it targets a "members only" C++ experts audience that doesn't need documentation, it won't get read.  Likewise, when non-experts (e.g., me) spend valuable time trying, but failing, to build, it also won't get read again for a long time, because it's safer to just keep scraping up pre-built binaries wherever they can find them, rather than risk wasting more time failing to build.