diff --git a/docs/model-api.txt b/docs/model-api.txt
index 961269aebdd55..e7afbfd13a215 100644
--- a/docs/model-api.txt
+++ b/docs/model-api.txt
@@ -1759,6 +1759,15 @@ But this template code is good::
 
     <a href="{{ object.get_absolute_url }}">{{ object.name }}</a>
 
+.. note::
+    The string you return from ``get_absolute_url()`` must be use only ASCII
+    characters (required by the URI spec, `RFC 2396`_) that has been
+    URL-encoded, if necessary. Code and templates using ``get_absolute_url()``
+    should be able to use the result directly without needing to do any
+    further processing.
+
+.. _RFC 2396: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
+
 The ``permalink`` decorator
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/docs/syndication_feeds.txt b/docs/syndication_feeds.txt
index d9d4f53b88e91..2a03e6d5a60e5 100644
--- a/docs/syndication_feeds.txt
+++ b/docs/syndication_feeds.txt
@@ -146,7 +146,10 @@ put into those elements.
       exist, it tries calling a method ``item_link()`` in the ``Feed`` class,
       passing it a single parameter, ``item``, which is the object itself.
       Both ``get_absolute_url()`` and ``item_link()`` should return the item's
-      URL as a normal Python string.
+      URL as a normal Python string. As with ``get_absolute_url()``, the
+      result of ``item_link()`` will be included directly in the URL, so you
+      are responsible for doing all necessary URL quoting and conversion to
+      ASCII inside the method itself.
 
     * For the LatestEntries example above, we could have very simple feed templates: