diff --git a/railties/Rakefile b/railties/Rakefile
index 6c0fc22629..a9adbda0b5 100644
--- a/railties/Rakefile
+++ b/railties/Rakefile
@@ -247,6 +247,7 @@ end
 
 desc 'Generate guides (for authors), use ONLY=foo to process just "foo.textile"'
 task :guides do
+  ENV["WARN_BROKEN_LINKS"] = "1" # authors can't disable this
   ruby "guides/rails_guides.rb"
 end
 
diff --git a/railties/guides/rails_guides/generator.rb b/railties/guides/rails_guides/generator.rb
index 9046b9203e..7807c2c565 100644
--- a/railties/guides/rails_guides/generator.rb
+++ b/railties/guides/rails_guides/generator.rb
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ module RailsGuides
           guess = anchors.min { |a, b|
             Levenshtein.distance(fragment_identifier, a) <=> Levenshtein.distance(fragment_identifier, b)
           }
-          puts "*** BROKEN LINK: ##{fragment_identifier}, perhaps you meant ##{guess}."
+          puts "*** BROKEN LINK: ##{fragment_identifier}, perhaps you meant ##{guess}." if ENV.key?("WARN_BROKEN_LINKS")
         end
       end
     end