Should N1QL update queries always add where meta().id not like '_sync%'?

I’m using SyncGateway w/Couchbase and all my documents contain an owner attribute. Occasionally I need to change the owner of some documents to a different owner using N1QL in the CB Query Workbench.

I have been excluding the SG documents (those with meta().id starting with ‘_sync’). Should I also be updating them? Sometimes it seems I need to restart SG to get the changes to propagate to my clients resynchronizing via PouchDB.

Also is there a discussion online on the purpose of the _sync records?

Thanks,
Steve