What is the recommended way to block/remove all default portlet assignments in a Plone 5 site (Navigation on the left and News on the left you be unassigned).
I tried to remove the portlets manually through the Plone UI and export the portlets.xml through portal_setup and use this file in my policy package...but no love.
-aj
Exporting an empty portlets.xml file and importing it again doesn't help...
I'd do it like in Plone 4.x. Try something like this in your portlets.xml (note the remove attribute):
<assignment type="portlets.News"
remove="True"
name="news"
manager="plone.rightcolumn"
category="context"
key="/" />
I didn't test this myself, but I think it should still work in Plone 5....
Manually, through the UI ???
The only default portlets can be removed /blocked with
http://sitename.com/@@topbar-manage-portlets/plone.leftcolumn
and @@topbar-manage-portlets/plone.rightcolumn
This is the canonical way for many years, that is not something that changed in Plone 5.
If the docs are bad regarding this, I agree. I only learned this from flyers distributed by 6 feet up on conferences 
@thet 's solution is perfectly working. I tried to blacklist the portlets instead (without success).
-aj