diff --git a/Doc/Makefile b/Doc/Makefile
index 02d1acf..b1b0e85 100644
--- a/Doc/Makefile
+++ b/Doc/Makefile
@@ -142,4 +142,4 @@
 	cp build/latex/docs-pdf.tar.bz2 dist/python-$(DISTVERSION)-docs-pdf-letter.tar.bz2
 
 check:
-	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools -s 2
+	$(PYTHON) tools/rstlint.py -i tools
diff --git a/Doc/tools/rstlint.py b/Doc/tools/rstlint.py
index 7e73942..0846d2a 100755
--- a/Doc/tools/rstlint.py
+++ b/Doc/tools/rstlint.py
@@ -91,7 +91,6 @@
 @checker('.py', '.rst')
 def check_whitespace(fn, lines):
     """Check for whitespace and line length issues."""
-    lasti = 0
     for lno, line in enumerate(lines):
         if '\r' in line:
             yield lno+1, '\\r in line'
@@ -99,7 +98,13 @@
             yield lno+1, 'OMG TABS!!!1'
         if line[:-1].rstrip(' \t') != line[:-1]:
             yield lno+1, 'trailing whitespace'
-        if len(line) > 86:
+
+
+@checker('.rst', severity=0)
+def check_line_length(fn, lines):
+    """Check for line length; this checker is not run by default."""
+    for lno, line in enumerate(lines):
+        if len(line) > 81:
             # don't complain about tables, links and function signatures
             if line.lstrip()[0] not in '+|' and \
                'http://' not in line and \