The ability to easily Browse ITNinja is critical to the usability of the site and is a key area that has needed attention since our launch. We’ve been hard at work fixing problems, enhancing features and even peppering in a few new capabilities over these last several weeks, but in our most recent update we have made a significant step forward in ensuring the site is easier to use by enforcing the notion of topics.

To keep the pick list under control, we have boiled down the list of high level topics to 18. When you post any new content (blogs, questions, or links) you’ll choose one or more of these new topics. To browse these topics (and to quickly follow those in which you are most interested) check out the new Topic page from the site navigation menu. You may also note we no longer provide a short list of popular topics right off the navigation menu so all topics are getting equal exposure on the site now. You can follow a topic, see a description or click it to browse a mixed list of content types associated with the selected topic. 

We’ve consolidated most all of the existing site content into one of these topic areas based on existing tags that were provided. If you have not noticed, a failure to pick some good tags often results in myself folowing up to do so on your behalf so most everything is accounted for in this topic roll-up. We’ll be reviewing any untagged content that didn’t find its way into a topic area but you’ll find most existing content handled already.

Tagging remains optional, but is encouraged to further specify any keywords or software associated with the content. This helps to make your content easier to find and helps to better associate it with similar software. When you tag content with a software product tag, it allows the content to be displayed as a link from that software's home page in our Software Library. All that said, the goal is that by requiring at least one topic we now have one reliable way to browse all content.  

(Speaking of browsing ITNinja, we are hard at work putting together a way to browse, and more easily add to, our Software Library now so look for that in the near future!)