aha! had to use the other yaml format

this makes subdirectory exclusion work

_config.yml

@@ -112,30 +112,63 @@ author:
 include:
  - .htaccess
  - _pages
-exclude:
-  - "*.sublime-project"
-  - "*.sublime-workspace"
-  - vendor
-  - .asset-cache
-  - .bundle
-  - .jekyll-assets-cache
-  - .sass-cache
-  - assets/js/plugins
-  - assets/js/_main.js
-  - assets/js/vendor
-  - Capfile
-  - CHANGELOG
-  - config
-  - Gemfile
-  - Gruntfile.js
-  - gulpfile.js
-  - LICENSE
-  - log
-  - node_modules
-  - package.json
-  - Rakefile
-  - README
-  - tmp
+exclude: [
+  "*.sublime-project",
+  "*.sublime-workspace",
+  vendor,
+  .asset-cache,
+  .bundle,
+  .jekyll-assets-cache,
+  .sass-cache,
+  assets/js/plugins,
+  assets/js/_main.js,
+  assets/js/vendor,
+  Capfile,
+  CHANGELOG,
+  config,
+  Gemfile,
+  Gruntfile.js,
+  gulpfile.js,
+  LICENSE,
+  log,
+  node_modules,
+  package.json,
+  Rakefile,
+  README,
+  tmp,
+  _pages/af_ZA,
+  _pages/ar_SA,
+  _pages/ca_ES,
+  _pages/cs_CZ,
+  _pages/da_DK,
+  _pages/de_DE,
+  _pages/el_GR,
+  _pages/en_PT,
+  # _pages/en_US,
+  _pages/es_EM,
+  _pages/es_ES,
+  _pages/fi_FL,
+  _pages/fr_FR,
+  _pages/he_IL,
+  _pages/hu_HU,
+  _pages/it_IT,
+  _pages/ja_JP,
+  _pages/ko_KR,
+  _pages/no_NO,
+  _pages/pl_PL,
+  _pages/pt_BR,
+  _pages/pt_PT,
+  _pages/ro_RO,
+  _pages/ru_RU,
+  _pages/sr_SP,
+  _pages/sv_SE,
+  _pages/tr_TR,
+  _pages/uk_UA,
+  _pages/vi_VN,
+  _pages/zh_CN,
+  _pages/zh_TW,
+]
+
 keep_files:
   - .git
   - .svn