diff --git a/changes/changelog.d/185.doc b/changes/changelog.d/185.doc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..72144e343d0d6f271232ad37c6190c49b1596c10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/changelog.d/185.doc
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Document that the database should use an utf-8 encoding (#185)
diff --git a/docs/installation/external_dependencies.rst b/docs/installation/external_dependencies.rst
index 059226979288970ab00450b57581ad5dc866c1b3..7de8abca05112383e55569c305b7f359651c522a 100644
--- a/docs/installation/external_dependencies.rst
+++ b/docs/installation/external_dependencies.rst
@@ -32,13 +32,22 @@ Create the project database and user:
 
 .. code-block:: shell
 
-    CREATE DATABASE funkwhale;
+    CREATE DATABASE "scratch"
+      WITH ENCODING 'utf8'
+      LC_COLLATE = 'en_US.utf8'
+      LC_CTYPE = 'en_US.utf8';
     CREATE USER funkwhale;
     GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE funkwhale TO funkwhale;
 
 Assuming you already have :ref:`created your funkwhale user <create-funkwhale-user>`,
 you should now be able to open a postgresql shell:
 
+.. warning::
+
+    It's importing that you use utf-8 encoding for your database,
+    otherwise you'll end up with errors and crashes later on when dealing
+    with music metedata that contains non-ascii chars.
+
 .. code-block:: shell
 
     sudo -u funkwhale -H psql