# Do not use welcome to Jekyll page

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [September 7, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306 "2019-09-07T20:35:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/1 "2019-09-07T20:35:32Z")

</div>

I do not want the `welcome to Jekyll` page that was generated when I created a new site, to appear in my site as it is irrelevant to my readers. I excluded it in the excludes section of my `config.yml` and I am now getting the following error when I rebuild my site:

```
     Error: could not read file /home/jgossage/gems/gems/jekyll-4.0.0/lib/site_template/_posts/0000-00-00-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown.erb: Invalid date '<%= Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z') %>': Document 'gems/gems/jekyll-4.0.0/lib/site_template/_posts/0000-00-00-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown.erb' does not have a valid date in the YAML front matter.
     ERROR: YOUR SITE COULD NOT BE BUILT:
            ------------------------------------
            Invalid date '<%= Time.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z') %>': Document 'gems/gems/jekyll-4.0.0/lib/site_template/_posts/0000-00-00-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown.erb' does not have a valid date in the YAML front matter.

```

What is the correct way of ensuring that this page does not appear on my site?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rdyar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/rdyar/32/710_2.png) [@rdyar](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/rdyar)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/2 "2019-09-08T01:42:57Z")

</div>

what is the name of the page? it looks like it was a post? why did you not just delete/edit it?

the error looks to be saying it is missing a date on the post - posts are required to have a date.

I have not built the default site in quite a while so I can’t remember what all is there, but you should be editing it not excluding it I would think.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 6:44am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/3 "2019-09-08T06:44:49Z")

</div>

The primary reason behind the _error_ you’re seeing above is because you _overrode_ the default excludes. i.e. by having the following in your config file:

```auto
exclude:
  - _posts/2019-09-07-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown

```

Your **`vendor/`** directory is no longer _excluded_.

The _fix_ for this **error** is to ensure that you’ve `vendor/` listed in your `exclude:` list if you’re customizing it. Depending on what version of Jekyll was used to create the boilerplate, there may or may not be a comment above the `exclude:` key in your config file.

However, Jekyll 4.0 has a patch built-in so `vendor/` is _always excluded_ even if users forget to exclude it explicitly.

Regarding the actual question this thread is about, the easiest solution is to just delete the welcome post.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/6 "2019-09-08T15:40:22Z")

</div>

This is not my file. It is provided by Jekyll when the jekyll new command is run to generate a new site. Since it contains nothing except information about Jekyll, it will not be interesting to my reaaders.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/8 "2019-09-08T15:44:46Z")

</div>

I was running Jekyll 4.0.0.0 so it appears that the patch you mentioned did not help. I will try modifying the `excludes`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/10 "2019-09-08T16:04:12Z")

</div>

Changing the excludes as you suggested worked, thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/11 "2019-09-08T17:12:23Z")

</div>

> [@caolin](#):
>
> I was running Jekyll 4.0.0.0 so it appears that the patch you mentioned did not help.

If you encountered this issue while using Jekyll 4.0, then it is a bug that has to be fixed.  
Is your site’s source-code publicly available on GitHub or similar…? I’d like to confirm that you were indeed running Jekyll 4.0 and encountered the error nevertheless.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/12 "2019-09-09T13:49:10Z")

</div>

I am still developing and teaching myself so this is not code that will be deployed. I am just trying to figure out how things work. It is separate to anything else so I could create a new repository. Would this help? Would the output from any other command help you confirm that I was running 4.0.0? Here is the output from `gem lis`t that shows Jekyll 4.0.0 installed.

activesupport (4.2.11.1)  
addressable (2.7.0)  
bigdecimal (default: 1.3.4)  
bundler (2.0.2)  
cmath (default: 1.0.0)  
coffee-script (2.4.1)  
coffee-script-source (1.11.1)  
colorator (1.1.0)  
commonmarker (0.17.13)  
concurrent-ruby (1.1.5)  
csv (default: 1.0.0)  
date (default: 1.0.0)  
dbm (default: 1.0.0)  
did\_you\_mean (1.2.0)  
dnsruby (1.61.3)  
em-websocket (0.5.1)  
etc (default: 1.0.0)  
ethon (0.12.0)  
eventmachine (1.2.7)  
execjs (2.7.0)  
faraday (0.15.4)  
fcntl (default: 1.0.0)  
ffi (1.11.1)  
fiddle (default: 1.0.0)  
fileutils (default: 1.0.2)  
forwardable-extended (2.6.0)  
gdbm (default: 2.0.0)  
gemoji (3.0.1)  
github-pages (198)  
github-pages-health-check (1.16.1)  
html-pipeline (2.12.0)  
http\_parser.rb (0.6.0)  
i18n (1.6.0, 0.9.5)  
io-console (default: 0.4.6)  
ipaddr (default: 1.2.0)  
jekyll (4.0.0, 3.8.5)  
jekyll-avatar (0.6.0)  
jekyll-coffeescript (1.1.1)  
jekyll-commonmark (1.3.1)  
jekyll-commonmark-ghpages (0.1.5)  
jekyll-default-layout (0.1.4)  
jekyll-feed (0.12.1, 0.11.0)  
jekyll-gist (1.5.0)  
jekyll-github-metadata (2.12.1)  
jekyll-mentions (1.4.1)  
jekyll-optional-front-matter (0.3.0)  
jekyll-paginate (1.1.0)  
jekyll-readme-index (0.2.0)  
jekyll-redirect-from (0.14.0)  
jekyll-relative-links (0.6.0)  
jekyll-remote-theme (0.3.1)  
jekyll-sass-converter (2.0.0, 1.5.2)  
jekyll-seo-tag (2.6.1, 2.5.0)  
jekyll-sitemap (1.2.0)  
jekyll-swiss (0.4.0)  
jekyll-theme-architect (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-cayman (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-dinky (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-hacker (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-leap-day (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-merlot (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-midnight (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-minimal (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-modernist (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-primer (0.5.3)  
jekyll-theme-slate (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-tactile (0.1.1)  
jekyll-theme-time-machine (0.1.1)  
jekyll-titles-from-headings (0.5.1)  
jekyll-watch (2.2.1)  
jemoji (0.10.2)  
json (default: 2.1.0)  
kramdown (2.1.0, 1.17.0)  
kramdown-parser-gfm (1.1.0)  
liquid (4.0.3, 4.0.0)  
listen (3.1.5)  
mercenary (0.3.6)  
mini\_portile2 (2.4.0)  
minima (2.5.1, 2.5.0)  
minitest (5.11.3, 5.10.3)  
multipart-post (2.1.1)  
net-telnet (0.1.1)  
nokogiri (1.10.4)  
octokit (4.14.0)  
openssl (default: 2.1.1)  
pathutil (0.16.2)  
power\_assert (0.2.7)  
psych (default: 3.0.2)  
public\_suffix (4.0.1, 3.1.1)  
rake (12.3.1)  
rb-fsevent (0.10.3)  
rb-inotify (0.10.0)  
rdoc (default: 6.0.1)  
rouge (3.10.0, 3.9.0, 2.2.1)  
ruby-enum (0.7.2)  
ruby\_dep (1.5.0)  
rubyzip (1.2.4)  
safe\_yaml (1.0.5)  
sass (3.7.4)  
sass-listen (4.0.0)  
sassc (2.2.0)  
sawyer (0.8.2)  
scanf (default: 1.0.0)  
sdbm (default: 1.0.0)  
stringio (default: 0.0.1)  
strscan (default: 1.0.0)  
terminal-table (1.8.0)  
test-unit (3.2.5)  
thread\_safe (0.3.6)  
typhoeus (1.3.1)  
tzinfo (1.2.5)  
unicode-display\_width (1.6.0)  
webrick (default: 1.4.2)  
zlib (default: 1.0.0)

Is there anything else I can do to help?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![caolin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/caolin/32/1261_2.png) [@caolin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/caolin)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/13 "2019-09-09T15:04:55Z")

</div>

I have uploaded a copy of the site to [GitHub](https://github.com/wiseoldbird/oldmaintenance). It contains more than what you are looking for, but it does include the complete site.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/do-not-use-welcome-to-jekyll-page/3306/14 "2019-09-09T16:38:33Z")

</div>

@caolin Thank you for providing the link to the repository.  
I cloned it locally and experimented with it.

The exact error that you mentioned in this thread (regarding `_posts/0000-00-00-welcome-to-jekyll.markdown.erb`) couldn’t be reproduced.

So, there’s no bug in that patch…