[1.5.X] Fixed #19180 - Clarified policy regarding older versions of the docs.

Backport of 5c143cb340 from master

2 files changed, 9 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/docs/internals/contributing/writing-documentation.txt b/docs/internals/contributing/writing-documentation.txt
index c8d7039a68..469f8614b9 100644
--- a/docs/internals/contributing/writing-documentation.txt
+++ b/docs/internals/contributing/writing-documentation.txt
@@ -30,8 +30,9 @@ If you'd like to start contributing to our docs, get the development version of
 Django from the source code repository
 (see :ref:`installing-development-version`). The development version has the
 latest-and-greatest documentation, just as it has latest-and-greatest code.
-Generally, we only revise documentation in the development version, as our
-policy is to freeze documentation for existing releases (see
+We also backport documentation fixes and improvements, at the discretion of the
+committer, to the last release branch. That's because it's highly advantageous
+to have the docs for the last release be up-to-date and correct (see
 :ref:`differences-between-doc-versions`).
 
 Getting started with Sphinx
diff --git a/docs/intro/whatsnext.txt b/docs/intro/whatsnext.txt
index ea4b18de03..500a858d47 100644
--- a/docs/intro/whatsnext.txt
+++ b/docs/intro/whatsnext.txt
@@ -216,15 +216,13 @@ We follow this policy:
   "New in version X.Y", being X.Y the next release version (hence, the one
   being developed).
 
-* Documentation for a particular Django release is frozen once the version
-  has been released officially. It remains a snapshot of the docs as of the
-  moment of the release. We will make exceptions to this rule in
-  the case of retroactive security updates or other such retroactive
-  changes. Once documentation is frozen, we add a note to the top of each
-  frozen document that says "These docs are frozen for Django version XXX"
-  and links to the current version of that document.
+* Documentation fixes and improvements may be backported to the last release
+  branch, at the discretion of the committer, however, once a version of
+  Django is :ref:`no longer supported<backwards-compatibility-policy>`, that
+  version of the docs won't get any further updates.
 
 * The `main documentation Web page`_ includes links to documentation for
-  all previous versions.
+  all previous versions. Be sure you are using the version of the docs
+  corresponding to the version of Django you are using!
 
 .. _main documentation Web page: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/