How to write meaningful docstrings?

Question

What, in Your opinion is a meaningful docstring? What do You expect to be described there?

For example, consider this Python class's __init__:

def __init__(self, name, value, displayName=None, matchingRule="strict"):
    """
    name - field name
    value - field value
    displayName - nice display name, if empty will be set to field name
    matchingRule - I have no idea what this does, set to strict by default
    """

Do you find this meaningful? Post Your good/bad examples for all to know (and a general answer so it can be accepted).

Answer 1

From PEP 8:

Conventions for writing good documentation strings (a.k.a. "docstrings") are immortalized in PEP 257.

• Write docstrings for all public modules, functions, classes, and methods. Docstrings are not necessary for non-public methods, but you should have a comment that describes what the method does. This comment should appear after the "def" line.
• PEP 257 describes good docstring conventions. Note that most importantly, the """ that ends a multiline docstring should be on a line by itself, and preferably preceded by a blank line.
• For one liner docstrings, it's okay to keep the closing """ on the same line.