diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 8ac28102a1..bda9ab05f6 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -268,6 +268,7 @@ answer newbie questions, and generally made Django that much better:
     Janos Guljas
     Thomas Güttler <hv@tbz-pariv.de>
     Horst Gutmann <zerok@zerokspot.com>
+    Bouke Haarsma <bouke@haarsma.eu>
     Antti Haapala <antti@industrialwebandmagic.com>
     Scot Hacker <shacker@birdhouse.org>
     dAniel hAhler
diff --git a/docs/howto/custom-template-tags.txt b/docs/howto/custom-template-tags.txt
index 35f78718e4..a4cb031d47 100644
--- a/docs/howto/custom-template-tags.txt
+++ b/docs/howto/custom-template-tags.txt
@@ -477,8 +477,12 @@ Notes:
 
 * The ``render()`` method is where the work actually happens.
 
-* ``render()`` should never raise ``TemplateSyntaxError`` or any other
-  exception. It should fail silently, just as template filters should.
+* ``render()`` should generally fail silently, particularly in a production
+  environment where :setting:`DEBUG` and :setting:`TEMPLATE_DEBUG` are
+  ``False``. In some cases however, particularly if :setting:`TEMPLATE_DEBUG` is
+  ``True``, this method may raise an exception to make debugging easier. For
+  example, several core tags raise ``django.template.TemplateSyntaxError``
+  if they receive the wrong number or type of arguments.
 
 Ultimately, this decoupling of compilation and rendering results in an
 efficient template system, because a template can render multiple contexts