diff -r c364f3f73634 -r b50c036494dc mercurial/hgweb/hgweb_mod.py
--- a/mercurial/hgweb/hgweb_mod.py	Wed Oct 11 03:32:59 2017 +0200
+++ b/mercurial/hgweb/hgweb_mod.py	Wed Oct 11 03:36:44 2017 +0200
@@ -177,7 +177,7 @@
         # some functions for the templater
 
         def motd(**map):
-            yield self.config('web', 'motd', '')
+            yield self.config('web', 'motd')
 
         # figure out which style to use