diff --git a/Doc/Makefile b/Doc/Makefile
index 6e1c18304080d6..c5301c819b40f7 100644
--- a/Doc/Makefile
+++ b/Doc/Makefile
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ dist:
 	cp -pPR build/epub/Python.epub dist/python-$(DISTVERSION)-docs.epub
 
 check:
-	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools -i venv
+	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools -i venv -i README.rst
 
 serve:
 	../Tools/scripts/serve.py build/html
diff --git a/Doc/README.txt b/Doc/README.rst
similarity index 83%
rename from Doc/README.txt
rename to Doc/README.rst
index 4f8e9f8f1417fb..dcd3d6e80ff3c4 100644
--- a/Doc/README.txt
+++ b/Doc/README.rst
@@ -2,20 +2,21 @@ Python Documentation README
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 This directory contains the reStructuredText (reST) sources to the Python
-documentation.  You don't need to build them yourself, prebuilt versions are
-available at <https://docs.python.org/dev/download.html>.
+documentation.  You don't need to build them yourself, `prebuilt versions are
+available <https://docs.python.org/dev/download.html>`_.
 
 Documentation on authoring Python documentation, including information about
-both style and markup, is available in the "Documenting Python" chapter of the
-developers guide <https://docs.python.org/devguide/documenting.html>.
+both style and markup, is available in the "`Documenting Python
+<https://docs.python.org/devguide/documenting.html>`_" chapter of the
+developers guide.
 
 
 Building the docs
 =================
 
-You need to have Sphinx <http://sphinx-doc.org/> installed; it is the toolset
+You need to have `Sphinx <http://sphinx-doc.org/>`_ installed; it is the toolset
 used to build the docs.  It is not included in this tree, but maintained
-separately and available from PyPI <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Sphinx>.
+separately and `available from PyPI <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Sphinx>`_.
 
 
 Using make
@@ -108,11 +109,11 @@ see the make targets above).
 Contributing
 ============
 
-Bugs in the content should be reported to the Python bug tracker at
-https://bugs.python.org.
+Bugs in the content should be reported to the 
+`Python bug tracker <https://bugs.python.org>`_.
 
-Bugs in the toolset should be reported in the Sphinx bug tracker at
-https://www.bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/sphinx/issues/.
+Bugs in the toolset should be reported in the 
+`Sphinx bug tracker <https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues>`_.
 
 You can also send a mail to the Python Documentation Team at docs@python.org,
 and we will process your request as soon as possible.
diff --git a/Doc/conf.py b/Doc/conf.py
index b3f26d5a692163..18aebb68a8d8df 100644
--- a/Doc/conf.py
+++ b/Doc/conf.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
 needs_sphinx = '1.2'
 
 # Ignore any .rst files in the venv/ directory.
-exclude_patterns = ['venv/*']
+exclude_patterns = ['venv/*', 'README.rst']
 
 
 # Options for HTML output
diff --git a/Doc/make.bat b/Doc/make.bat
index d0b59618261011..b1a3738f309d3b 100644
--- a/Doc/make.bat
+++ b/Doc/make.bat
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ echo.   Provided by this script:
 echo.      clean, check, serve, htmlview
 echo.
 echo.All arguments past the first one are passed through to sphinx-build as
-echo.filenames to build or are ignored.  See README.txt in this directory or
+echo.filenames to build or are ignored.  See README.rst in this directory or
 echo.the documentation for your version of Sphinx for more exhaustive lists
 echo.of available targets and descriptions of each.
 echo.
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index c6cca80b41273a..652dfef7df304a 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -130,8 +130,8 @@ If you would like to contribute to the development of Python, relevant
 documentation is available in the `Python Developer's Guide
 <https://docs.python.org/devguide/>`_.
 
-For information about building Python's documentation, refer to `Doc/README.txt
-<https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Doc/README.txt>`_.
+For information about building Python's documentation, refer to `Doc/README.rst
+<https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Doc/README.rst>`_.
 
 
 Converting From Python 2.x to 3.x