[issue37644] Sphinx (Travis doc build) is blocking merging

[Terry J. Reedy]

New submission from Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu>:

One of the required CI tests is a Travis doc build, even if a PR does not touch any doc file.  The following failure appears to be deterministic on master and 3.8.  A 3.7 backport passed.  It has happened multiple times on multiple PRs today.  Example:
https://travis-ci.org/python/cpython/jobs/561700698
The failure is
'''
Warning, treated as error:
[distutils/examples:267] "`" found in "This is the description of the ``foobar`` package."
'''
I have no idea why this is seen as suspicious.

I have 4 PRs blocked by this.
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/14872
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/14879
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/14883
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/14881
The last one is the 3.8 backport of a PR that passed CI maybe 12 hours ago.  Its 3.7 backport passed and is merged.

If nothing else, can warnings not be treated as errors?

----------
components: Tests
keywords: 3.8regression
messages: 348253
nosy: mdk, terry.reedy, vstinner, zach.ware
priority: critical
severity: normal
stage: needs patch
status: open
title: Sphinx (Travis doc build) is blocking merging
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.8, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue37644>
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