See https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.6.html

At top:

:Release: |release|
:Date: |today|
:Editors: Elvis Pranskevichus <elvis@magic.io>, Yury Selivanov <yury@magic.io>

This |today| is replaced with day when HTML is build (like "Last updated:" in footer).  This is near to the date this page is modified last on docs.python.org, until clean rebuild happens.
But other cases, this shows only when this HTML is built.  It's confusing.

How about replacing |today| to Python 3.6.0 release date, or removing the ":Date: |today|" line?

It's a bit confusing but:

1. https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.6.html

is the URL for the current 3.6 branch, in other words, what will be in the next 3.6 release.  These are rebuilt as changes are checked in.

2. https://docs.python.org/release/3.6.0/whatsnew/3.6.html

(which is linked from https://www.python.org/doc/versions/) is the URL for the docs corresponding to the 3.6.0 release.  These are built at release time and then never change.

Does that help?

> is the URL for the current 3.6 branch, in other words, what will be in the next 3.6 release.

"next 3.6 release" means 3.6.1?

> These are rebuilt as changes are checked in.

There are some commit for fixing something after 3.6.0 released.
But I think rebuild can be happen without changing the page.  For example, major sphinx version up, fixing template, update version of imported js libraries.
And as I said, the document may be built on other machine. In this case, this |today| is not related to last commit date of this page. It seems unmeaningful.

So I still this ":Date:" should be release date, or removed.

Sorry, I disagree.  I think the point of adding these directives is that shows for what release of 3.6.x they apply.  It is expected that the What's New documents may be updated during the lifecycle of a major release and having the release and date there lets the reader know that they are update.  For example, at the moment https://docs.python.org/3.6/whatsnew/3.6.html shows:

What’s New In Python 3.6
Release:	3.6.1rc1
Date:	March 05, 2017

which is correct.

https://docs.python.org/3.7/whatsnew/3.6.html shows:
Release:	3.7.0a0
Date:	February 15, 2017

Is it make sense for you?

Additonally, unlike "changelog", "What's New" only shows difference between 3.5 and 3.6.  It won't be updated to describe changes between 3.6.0 and 3.6.1.

> Additonally, unlike "changelog", "What's New" only shows difference between 3.5 and 3.6.  It won't be updated to describe changes between 3.6.0 and 3.6.1.

That's not always true.  There are occasionally changes made in the What's New document for maintenance releases.  See, for example, https://docs.python.org/3.5/whatsnew/3.5.html.  You'll find references to 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 there.

If it's truly bothering people, a better solution is to just remove the release and date directives.  They aren't there for earlier releases.  We can live without them.

I'm sorry, I was wrong.

https://docs.python.org/3.5/whatsnew/3.5.html

asyncio has "Updates in 3.5.1:" section.
provisional package will introduce updates in what's new in bugfix release.

So is it OK to just removing Date and Release field?
"Date (when this HTML is built)" and "Release (of branch this page is built)" are not good for "What's New In 3.6" page.

Heh, it looks like we agree!

New changeset 0acdea79cba3883c5e7035c7336fb0ce54435c03 by Ned Deily (INADA Naoki) in branch '3.6':
bpo-29719: Remove Date and Release field in whatsnew/3.6 (GH-500)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/0acdea79cba3883c5e7035c7336fb0ce54435c03

New changeset 4e1a065c20856a00d0fe88ce022b249170608058 by INADA Naoki in branch '3.6':
bpo-29719: Remove Date and Release field in whatsnew/3.6 (GH-500)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4e1a065c20856a00d0fe88ce022b249170608058

New changeset 2225ddaa9e64c086b2b6997b0c9ac50921f7aa85 by INADA Naoki in branch 'master':
bpo-29719: Remove Date and Release field in whatsnew/3.6 (GH-494)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/2225ddaa9e64c086b2b6997b0c9ac50921f7aa85

I believe this can be closed as 'fixed'?

New changeset a34510a4c562b4b23c7f9da6ff6e2318484f5f1a by Ned Deily in branch 'master':
bpo-29719: Remove Date and Release field in whatsnew/3.7 and 8 (GH-6093)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/a34510a4c562b4b23c7f9da6ff6e2318484f5f1a

New changeset d461ed84b57aae0bdccd117dc38109c087444d50 by Ned Deily in branch '3.7':
bpo-29719: Remove Date and Release field in whatsnew/3.7 (GH-6094)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/d461ed84b57aae0bdccd117dc38109c087444d50

> I believe this can be closed as 'fixed'?

Well, it *was* fixed!  But then I reintroduced the boilerplate when I created the 3.7 and 3.8 whatsnew files - now fixed.  Thanks for the reminder!