Help: My RSS Feed

[larvapuppy]

Here is a link to the current state of my RSS feed: https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/rss.xml

As you can see, it current displays the text:

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/rss.xml
Line Number 10, Column 1:
<item>
^

This is my first time making an RSS feed, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong? Am I doing something wrong?   

My code:

Code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">

<channel>

  <title>Larvapuppy's Personal Website</title>
  <link>https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/</link>
  <description>Larvapuppy's artwork showcase, graphics collection, and personal blog.</description
  
<item>
<title>RSS Feed</title>
<link>https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/rss.xml</link>
<guid>https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/rss.xml</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2023 13:53:00 AST</pubDate>
<description>Created my RSS feed.</description>
</item>
  
<item>
<title>Hydra's Webpage</title>
<link>https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/ocs/hydra/hydra</link>
<guid>https://larvapuppy.neocities.org/ocs/hydra/hydra</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:00:00 AST</pubDate>
<description>Updated my character Hydra's page with descriptions and a proper layout. It is now presentable enought to show off.</description>
</item>

  
</channel>

</rss>

Also accepting constructive criticism on formatting and content 

[j]

it may be a copying error on your part, but line 8 is missing a closing ">" symbol

[larvapuppy]

Yup, that was it... 

I'm still looking for constructive criticism though. If you guys think there is not enough detail / too much detail in the entries or if I'm just completely missing the point of an RSS feed... let me know your thoughts

[j]

I'm still looking for constructive criticism though.

it looks ok to me! when i used to have an RSS feed, i made the mistake of writing too elaborately, which left me burnt out because i was writing blog posts and then having to resummarize in different words what i had just written about in hand-written RSS. thinking about it now: i don't know /how/ that made sense to me. oh well.

RSS is essentially a souped-up fancy notification giver except that it's fetched upon the client's request. in all honesty, if you're putting your effort into something already, and somebody likes your website, then a single line of "i updated this page!" would be enough for me to be interested enough to read.

just my two cents!

[TheNothingMonster]

it looks ok to me! when i used to have an RSS feed, i made the mistake of writing too elaborately, which left me burnt out because i was writing blog posts and then having to resummarize in different words what i had just written about in hand-written RSS. thinking about it now: i don't know /how/ that made sense to me. oh well.

I stopped maintaining my RSS feed for this exact reason. I was just putting too much additional effort on it for no good reason apart from aesthetic purposes.

I'm still looking for constructive criticism though. If you guys think there is not enough detail / too much detail in the entries or if I'm just completely missing the point of an RSS feed... let me know your thoughts

I think it is just fine too! It is up to you if you would like to add or alter stuff. However, I would recommend you focus on how your updates are presented within your site rather than within your RSS feed. You can even copy and paste whatever you write on your "Site News" section without thinking too much about it! These feeds are for simple notification purposes after all. That is, unless, you wanna get creative with it.

[wygolvillage]

When I update my feed it's usually just stuff like "new blog post- (post title)" and the summary is something short like "here's a post about this movie i saw, check it out" or whatever. I figure if someone is interested in the content they'll click through anyway so no need to overcomplicate.

[larvapuppy]

Thanks everyone for the advice, super helpful stuff!  I really appreciate it.

I have one more question: I'm wondering if I'm meant to style my RSS feed? The page says, "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." So am I able to / supposed to style it using CSS or something?

[TheNothingMonster]

I have one more question: I'm wondering if I'm meant to style my RSS feed? The page says, "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." So am I able to / supposed to style it using CSS or something?

Well, you are not "supposed to", but you are "able to". This message is just a warning which notes that the browser is reading a raw file with no styling. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not an error or anything.

You can add a style to any MXL file, similarly to how you would style any HTML page. So you could style your RSS feed if you ever feel like doing so. Again, it's up to you- and I've personally never seen anybody do it before!

I found this StackOverflow thread based around the same topic in case you're interested. The answer also provides an example of how you can add styling to the file.