There has been an error
You're probably wondering why you're getting this error now when trying to access Picks! Is it your fault, Blotanical's issue or a problem with the blog?
Firstly, let me assure you it's not your fault.
Blotanical is undergoing some major changes in this area to better cope with the pressures of an increasing blog listing. With more than 1520 blogs on offer, space is getting cramped and resources are struggling to keep up. So, a better system is being developed to handle the growth.
On face value, it may seem that Blotanical Picks are getting worse, not better, and that errors are all too frequent. Let me assure you though that the errors are actually getting less and less each day, it's just that you're now becoming aware of them.
The reason for this awareness is to try and educate blog owners that there is only so much *magic* that can be wielded on badly formed feeds. In the past, Blotanical has bent over backwards to try and accommodate the vast amount of nuances that blog owners have cast upon it. Unfortunately, the time has come to put the onus of these feed problems back onto the owners that produce them.
Having said all that, there are some ways that blog owners can begin to check their feeds and ensure that they are up to scratch. I will continue to add to this post over time as better opportunities to correct bad feeds and I will add this to the FAQ's page too.
Is my feed valid?
First step in this process is checking that your feed is actually valid. To do this, copy your feed from within the myBlogs tab of your Plot. Click the Edit button and then copy the Blog Feed url. Then paste it into this Feed Validator and click Check.The Feed Validator will then spit out the validation results of your feed and give you some feedback as to how to improve your feed code if its needed. In most cases, burning a Feedburner feed will fix many of those lesser improvements.
Linking Your Feed Correctly
For your blog to produce a reliable feed, you should have a correctly formed link within your blog template. For many blog platforms (Wordpress, Blogger etc) it's merely a case of selecting the correct preference within your options.You can check to see if your blog is producing a legitimate feed via the auto-discovery tabs on the right-side of most browser Address bars (as shown below from Firefox);
If you click on the orange RSS icon it will automatically take you to the blog's feed where you can choose to subscribe, if you wish. In this case you're just checking to see what url comes up in the feed bar so that you can analyse whether it's the same as the one you listed for Blotanical. If not, then change the Blog Feed url in Blotanical to reflect what is actually being produced.
Sometimes, as in the image above, clicking on the orange RSS icon will produce a list of feeds that you can subscribe to. These will be listed in order of which feed is accessed first by Blotanical. In the case above, the feed is actually producing an error because it's picking up the Comment feed not the blog feed.
You can check this again by clicking the View > Page Source (or equivalent in your browser) of your blog and check the <link rel='alternate'> links just under the <head> tags in the HTML.
In the following example this code;
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Comments feed" href="http://example.com/2009/08/post_title/feed/" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title=" feed" href="http://example.com/feed/" />
will produce an error within Picks.
Instead, swap them over so that the blog's feed link is listed first with the Comment feed listed second.
What if I'm still seeing errors for my blog posts?
Feel free to comment below and I shall investigate ways to rectify the problem. I would like to use some examples as case studies for other bloggers so if you're willing to be a model then I, and possibly the rest of the Blotanical community, would appreciate your openness.As a disclaimer, I also make mistakes and just because your post may appear to show errors in Picks doesn't mean that the problem lies with your blog. It may be some coding error - like the Stuart Clone problem that some members experienced lately. Oops!
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Comments
Hello Stuart
My big problem with Blotanical at present isn't errors but speed.
I don't come here as often as I used to and tend to access the blogs I read through my own lists.
Sometimes, I try to pick some posts - then give up because I would rather read more than pick more.
Lucy
Posted by: Lucy Corrander | August 19, 2009 1:33 AM
Which part is slow? The Picking aspect or accessing the Lists?
Posted by: Stuart
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August 19, 2009 8:34 AM
Me again, Stuart. Need to let you know that I waited for everything to settle down, then today, I sent another test post. Waited 30 mins. as usual, then came over and pinged, and the test message did show up in a little while in the Picks List. Maybe you did something to get it going again. Anyway, thank you ever so much. I was so discouraged that I had quit writing. Thank you.
Posted by: Barbee' | September 11, 2009 11:17 PM