Detailed Change Log: Launch Readiness Cleanup

Date: 2026-05-18 Repository: YanWin/YanWin.github.io High-level entry: website-change-overview.md

Request

Review what was still left before publishing the site and fix the concrete launch issues. The requested follow-up changes were to remove dead publication links, remove direct PDF access for peer-reviewed journal articles, keep the privacy page available for possible future Google Analytics use, keep “Tübingen” spelling throughout, and leave the CV page as-is for now.

Context Map

Files Modified

File	Purpose	Change
`_includes/publication-card.html`	Shared publication card renderer	Hid empty action links and suppressed PDF buttons for published peer-reviewed papers
`_pages/publications.html`	Publications archive	Removed the uncategorized fallback block to avoid duplicate archive entries and stay compatible with the repo’s older Jekyll/Liquid stack
`_publications/inflation-and-price-flexibility.md`	Published paper metadata	Removed direct PDF access from the published article entry
`_publications/endogenous-gridpoint-method-distributional-dynamics.md`	Published paper metadata	Removed direct PDF access from the published article entry
`_pages/terms.md`	Privacy page	Rewrote the policy text to match the current site setup while leaving room for future analytics
`_teaching/toolkit-bachelor-thesis-macroeconomics.md`	Teaching metadata	Standardized the institution spelling to “Tübingen”
`_teaching/introduction-to-economics.md`	Teaching metadata	Standardized the institution spelling to “Tübingen”
`_includes/author-profile.html`	Sidebar profile block	Removed the stock “Follow” button
`_includes/footer.html`	Footer	Removed template-branding copy and kept a minimal footer
`_pages/markdown.md`	Template demo page	Deleted the public demo page
`_pages/archive-layout-with-content.md`	Template demo page	Deleted the public demo page
`_pages/non-menu-page.md`	Template demo page	Deleted the public demo page
`docs/website-change-overview.md`	Change index	Added the high-level summary row for this cleanup

Risks

The privacy page now reflects the current configuration, but it will need another update once analytics are actually enabled.

Task Steps

Fix the shared publication card renderer so empty links do not render and published articles no longer expose PDF buttons.
Repair the publications archive fallback section so categorized entries are not shown twice.
Remove leftover public template/demo pages that should not be live on the published site.
Rewrite the privacy text to fit the current site behavior while keeping it ready for future analytics changes.
Standardize the Tübingen spelling in teaching entries and trim remaining template-like chrome from the sidebar and footer.
Update the high-level overview and validate the touched files.

Implementation Plan

Keep all publication behavior changes in the shared renderer and publication front matter so the homepage and archive stay consistent.
Delete the public demo pages entirely instead of just hiding them from navigation.
Keep the privacy page, but rewrite it to describe the current no-analytics state and future update path.

Progress Updates

Confirmed that the dead buttons and published-paper PDF access both originate in _includes/publication-card.html.
Confirmed that the duplicate “More Publications” section originates in _pages/publications.html fallback logic.
Confirmed that three template/demo pages were still public and that the existing privacy copy no longer matched _config.yml.

Final Implementation Results

Empty publication action buttons no longer render, and journal articles now link only to the publisher pages.
The publications archive now renders only the explicit status sections, which removes the duplicate fallback output and remains compatible with the repo’s older Liquid version.
The old markdown/demo pages were removed from the public site source.
The privacy page now states that comments and Google Analytics are not currently enabled and notes that it will be updated if analytics are added later.
Teaching entries now use “Tübingen” consistently.
The sidebar and footer no longer show the most obvious stock Academic Pages chrome.

Verification Notes

get_errors was run against the touched source files after editing.
docker compose logs --tail=200 identified a Liquid syntax error from a where_exp expression in _pages/publications.html; removing that fallback block resolved the container startup failure on the documented Docker workflow.
A clean Jekyll rebuild is still blocked on this Windows machine because the legacy github-pages dependency stack fails to compile native gems such as rdiscount in the local Ruby environment.
Because of that build limitation, source-level validation was used for the changed templates and content, rather than a fresh rendered preview.

Closure

The main launch blockers identified in the review were addressed directly in the owning files.
Remaining optional polish includes any future redesign of the CV page and a final pass once a working Jekyll build environment is available.