diff --git a/docs/testing/testing-with-django.md b/docs/testing/testing-with-django.md
index 0ef6b68c7b..314fdea585 100644
--- a/docs/testing/testing-with-django.md
+++ b/docs/testing/testing-with-django.md
@@ -44,12 +44,12 @@ URL coverage, and slow tests.  Use the `-h` option to discover these
 features.  We also have a `--profile` option to facilitate profiling
 tests.
 
-Another thing to note is that our tests generally "fail fast," i.e. they
-stop at the first sign of trouble.  This is generally a good thing for
-iterative development, but you can override this behavior with the
-`--nonfatal-errors` option.  A useful option to combine with that is
-the `--rerun` option, which will rerun just the tests that failed in
-the last test run.
+By default, `test-backend` will run all requested tests, and report
+all failures at the end. You can configure it to stop after the first
+error with the `--stop` option (or `-x`).
+
+Another useful option is `--rerun`, which will rerun just the tests
+that failed in the last test run.
 
 **Webhook integrations**.  For performance, `test-backend` with no
 arguments will not run webhook integration tests (`zerver/webhooks/`),
diff --git a/tools/test-backend b/tools/test-backend
index 60917224aa..eb6194b060 100755
--- a/tools/test-backend
+++ b/tools/test-backend
@@ -223,10 +223,11 @@ def main() -> None:
     )
 
     parser.add_argument(
-        "--nonfatal-errors",
-        action="store_false",
+        "-x",
+        "--stop",
+        action="store_true",
         dest="fatal_errors",
-        help="Continue past test failures to run all tests",
+        help="Stop running tests after the first failure.",
     )
     parser.add_argument("--coverage", action="store_true", help="Compute test coverage.")
     parser.add_argument(
@@ -257,8 +258,7 @@ def main() -> None:
         "--rerun",
         action="store_true",
         help=(
-            "Run the tests which failed the last time "
-            "test-backend was run.  Implies --nonfatal-errors."
+            "Run the tests which failed the last time " "test-backend was run.  Implies not --stop."
         ),
     )
     parser.add_argument(
@@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ def main() -> None:
     # While running --rerun, we read var/last_test_failure.json to get
     # the list of tests that failed on the last run, and then pretend
     # those tests were passed explicitly.  --rerun implies
-    # --nonfatal-errors, so that we don't end up removing tests from
+    # !fatal_errors, so that we don't end up removing tests from
     # the list that weren't run.
     if options.rerun:
         parallel = 1