Tags, Tags, and more Tags...

We updated the CodePlex software today and added a new feature or two. The main feature that is being deployed today is tagging. We thought that as the number of projects grew we needed a way to categorize the projects (it was also one of the most requested features). We thought about different strategies to categorize the projects on the site and the problem with a site like CodePlex is that no matter what taxonomy you could imagine there always need to be more categories or the categories themselves are not descriptive enough for the end-user. We looked around for ways to solve this problem and the best solution that we came up with was to put in place a mechanism for a taxonomy to evolve with the projects on the site, via a folksonomy. Any logged in user can add a tag to an existing project. The most popular tags will show up on the home page. If you click on one of the tags in the tag cloud it will show a list of all the projects that have that tag.

Please let us know what you think. Your suggestions to date have been invaluable as we look for ways to continue to enhance the site.