[SOLVED] Yet another subfolder list pages question

Hi, sorry about this. I have tried really hard to figure it out and read the docs and innumerable support forum threads but still I’m at a loss. I am porting a large mature site from Jekyll, with this structure:

/
/articles/ (an index page of all articles)
/articles/$category/ (index of articles in one category, there are 6 categories)
/articles/$category/$post
/about/ (index page of all about pages)
/about/$page

I figured the easiest way to replicate this was to sort the posts into folders on this pattern and put index pages in each folder, using the sections feature, then on the list layout just put a condition for the articles index, but I cannot get the list of articles to show up. The subfolder indexes are all fine. It’s just trying to winkle out a list of all regularPages that are not in the /about folder. I gave articles/index.md the param base=“true” and then in layouts/_default/list.html I tried, well I tried a pile of things but right now the non-working thing I have is:
{{ define “main” -}}

{{ .Page.Title }}


{{ .Content }}
<ul class="cards">
   {{ if isset .Params "base" }} 
        {{ range where .Paginator.Pages "Section" "!=" "about" }}
            <li class="card {{.Type}}">
                {{ partial "chunks/card.html" .}}
            </li>
        {{ end }}
    {{ else }}
        {{ range .Paginator.Pages }}
            <li class="card {{.Type}}">
                {{ partial "chunks/card.html" .}}
            </li>
        {{ end }}
    {{ end}}
</ul>

{{ template "_internal/pagination.html" . }}

{{- end }}

Can anyone give me a hint? I have read the docs, honestly, but I am having trouble translating them into practical concrete steps.

I took Paginator out and it started working:

{{ define "main" -}}
<h2 class="page header">{{ .Page.Title }}</h2> 
{{ .Content }}

<ul class="cards">
   {{ if isset .Params "base" }} 
        {{ range where .Site.RegularPages "Section" "!=" "about" }}
            <li class="card {{.Type}}">
                {{ partial "chunks/card.html" .}}
            </li>
        {{ end }}
    {{ else }}
        {{ range .Site.RegularPages .}}
            <li class="card {{.Type}}">
                {{ partial "chunks/card.html" .}}
            </li>
        {{ end }}
    {{ end}}
</ul>
{{- end }}