diff --git a/src/_pytest/hookspec.py b/src/_pytest/hookspec.py
index 5edec31d5..0d552088a 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/hookspec.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/hookspec.py
@@ -170,28 +170,22 @@ def pytest_load_initial_conftests(early_config, parser, args):
 def pytest_collection(session: "Session") -> Optional[Any]:
     """Perform the collection protocol for the given session.
 
-    Usually plugins will implement this hook only to perform some action before
-    collection, for example the terminal plugin will use this to start displaying
-    the collection counter, so usually plugins return `None` from this hook after
-    performing the desired operation.
-    
-    However a plugin might decide to override the collection completely,
-    in which case it should return `True`, but then it is usually expected
-    that this hook will also need to perform the following operations 
-    that are usually part of the collection process:
-    
+    Stops at first non-None result, see :ref:`firstresult`.
+    The return value is not used, but only stops further processing.
+
+    The hook is meant to set `session.items` to a sequence of items at least,
+    but normally should follow this procedure:
+
       1. Call the pytest_collectstart hook.
       2. Call the pytest_collectreport hook.
       3. Call the pytest_collection_modifyitems hook.
       4. Call the pytest_collection_finish hook.
       5. Set session.testscollected to the amount of collect items.
       6. Set `session.items` to a list of items.
-      
-    If a plugin just wants to skip collection entirely, like `pytest-xdist`
-    does for master nodes, then it is OK to not do anything other than
-    returning `True` from here.
 
-    Stops at first non-None result, see :ref:`firstresult`.
+    You can implement this hook to only perform some action before collection,
+    for example the terminal plugin uses it to start displaying the collection
+    counter (and returns `None`).
 
     :param _pytest.main.Session session: the pytest session object
     """