Yep. We (Loomio) have been using Dokku as an alternative to Heroku hosting - our main site is still on heroku, but we know that many people are using Dokku for Loomio hosting.
Since doing that we've seen a big increase in the number of poeple contributing code and helping out on Github. It's certainly been worth it from that point of view.
Thanks! Yes anyone can start a discussion and a proposal, but we haven't experienced people just starting proposals without engaging in other ways. People start proposals but if you don't want to participate, you can just let them die. The big idea here is to build shared understanding through discussion before a proposal is suggested, that way the group has a solid foundation on which to create a decision.
I spent about a week writing up the documentation: http://github.com/loomio/loomio/wiki
Since doing that we've seen a big increase in the number of poeple contributing code and helping out on Github. It's certainly been worth it from that point of view.