# What Is RSS?

Article by Dalm.
RSS AKA Really Smart Syndication, Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary is a kind of standardised format for publishing site updates using only a single XML-formatted text file! An RSS Feed can be published anywhere on the web that allows you to upload text files and view them on the public web! From Neocities, to self-hosted solutions, to Github, to Google Drive! (but also, don't use google.)
RSS relies on two things to work:

- A specially formatted plain text file that's uploaded somewhere on the web. When the publisher of the feed wants to add something new, they simply change this file. Each time the publisher updates this file, it is then checked by...
- A "News Aggregator" or RSS Reader application, which is installed by the person following the feed. This checks for updates to the text file above every so often. When it discovers a difference, it adds the new entry to the feed!

## Why use it?

In the modern day we've become accustomed to personalised feeds run by algorithms... But to some degree, these actually make it HARDER for you to see the things you want to see and keep up with what your friends are up to! However, technologies exist that can help us keep up to date with what our favourite artists, writers and musicians are up to without relying on centralised social media feeds which tend to hide things that don't fit their corporate idea of what constitutes "content."
The real world, the real internet, cannot be boiled down to 'content.' Not everything is easily shareable in a chunk divorced from context. Rather than bringing works to you, RSS is a system which brings you to the work. Allows you to understand it in its own context on the internet. It is also not reliant on huge companies which do not have your best interests in mind, unlike Twitter, for example (which was just bought by noted union buster & ape mutilator Elon Musk.)
It also allows you to better sort your news-- On many feed-based websites such as Facebook or Twitter, you find everything everyone's doing in one big long slurry. You might see someone's personal essay, then you might see a shared piece of news about conservative attacks on transgender people, then a poem, then some porn. Using a curated feed means that you can see all those things in a big slurry if you want, or you can keep them separate... It's just better for your mental health! It also allows you to create an experience of catching up with people's sites that is not addictive or manipulative, but is instead self-directed and relaxed... Your RSS feed also won't notify anyone when you update your page, unless you want it to! This means that your followers won't get spammed with everything you've done or liked or what-have-you... After all, the Like button is just another Retweet button!
RSS is extremely easy to set up by hand, totally free (as long as you have hosting), and does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a sensible existing format which solves some of the problems that social media giants have invented, and it already exists! Read on in this article for instructions on how to set up an RSS feed on your website, some programs you can use to follow the RSS feeds belonging to your friends, and some goodies and badges made by me.
For more information on the project of reclaiming the internet and creating smaller, healthier spaces, check out The Indieweb and Yesterweb communities!

# How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Site!

Adding an RSS feed to your site is extremely simple. All you really need to do is format a file in notepad in the proper way, then upload it anywhere that allows you to directly link to it and modify/reupload the file at the same URL. Neocities is ideal for this, but anywhere you're hosting a static site will work.
The file can be either a .txt or a .xml file. I prefer .xml as in Firefox, it causes a popup to appear asking if the user wants to subscribe using a couple of popular RSS readers. Either can be read by most readers, however.
Below is a guide by Adrian Neumann made for https://rssguide.neocities.org. (this guide is CC-BY-SA)

# RSS Howto

This is a simple guide to adding an RSS Feed to your Neocities site, by hand.

## Your First RSS Feed

RSS is a simple format, similar to HTML. To can create an RSS Feed for your site in any text editor, including the one provided by Neocities in the browser. Just like with HTML you need a bit of boilerplate to get started. It looks like this:

            <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
            <rss version="2.0">
            <channel>
              <title>Your RSS Feed Title</title>
              <description>This is the description of your RSS feed</description>
              <link>https://rssguide.neocities.org</link>
              <lastBuildDate>
                Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:58 +0100
              </lastBuildDate>
              <ttl>20000</ttl>
            </channel>
            </rss>

That's an empty RSS Feed. The `lastBuildDate` tag together with the `ttl` tag provide hints for RSS readers how often they should update the feed. It is important to adhere to the format of the timestamp. It must be compliant to RFC 2822. Since understanding RFCs is a bit complicated, I recommend you use a handy timestamp generator, for example here.

## Adding the RSS Feed to your site

After saving the above text in a file on your server, e.g. `feed.txt` you can add a link somewhere on your site to let people know where to find your feed. Additionally you can add a tag to the header of your website let browsers know that your site has an RSS feed so that they can activate RSS support if they have it. Add the following next to the `meta` tags in the header: `<link href="https://rssguide.neocities.org/feed.txt" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="What's new on rssguide.neociites.org" />`.

## Adding Items to your RSS Feed

Adding items to your feed is easy too. An item looks something like this:

            <item>
              <title>The title of your item</title>
              <description>
                An arbitrary description of your item, for example the content of your new article, or a short excerpt.
              </description>
              <link>https://rssguide.neocities.org/the_article.html</link>
              <pubDate>
                Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:58 +0100
              </pubDate>
            </item>

The `pubDate` tag again must contain the date in the RFC 2822 format. Don't forget to adapt the `lastBuildDate` as well.

If you want to add HTML in the description that's possible as well, but you first have to run it through a tool that escapes special characters like <. Here is such a tool.

You can add files to your item with the `enclosure` tag. Check Wikipedia for an example.

Now you just add the `item` after the `ttl` and you're done. The finished feed looks like this:

            <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
            <rss version="2.0">
            <channel>
              <title>Your RSS Feed Title</title>
              <description>This is the description of your RSS feed</description>
              <link>https://rssguide.neocities.org</link>
              <lastBuildDate>
                Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:58 +0100
              </lastBuildDate>
              <ttl>20000</ttl>

              <item>
                <title>The title of your item</title>
                <description>
                  An arbitrary description of your item, for example the content of your new article, or a short excerpt.
                </description>
                <link>https://rssguide.neocities.org/the_article.html</link>
                <pubDate>
                  Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:58 +0100
                </pubDate>
              </item>
            </channel>
            </rss>

Eventually you might want to purge old items from the bottom of your feed, but that's not strictly necessary.

--Adrian Neumann, Source: https://rssguide.neocities.org

# Feed Readers: Keep Up With Your Friends!

A Feed reader is an application that's used to view RSS feeds and notifies you when you update. I like to use Mozilla Thunderbird, as it doubles as a fairly solid Email client and lets you customise your various feeds, but below are some ones that my friends recommend:

# Goodies and Downloads