You may have noticed a number of new features on DCist today, thanks to an -ist network wide upgrade. Since these features are brand new, they’re also wreaking a normal amount of havoc on our servers as the Gothamist tech team races to fix bugs and get everything up and running smoothly. That said, our servers are going down on and off right now, so we’re not at 100 percent today. We appreciate you being patient while the kinks are worked out.

That said, allow us to introduce the following new features:

>> Tagged searching: From now on, DCist posts will contain tags that allow you to search for old posts that also contain the same tag. All you have to do is click on any tag at the end of any post, and you’ll get a new page with all the relevant posts. That said, this new searching capability will obviously become more dynamic as time goes on. We’re still tweaking the tags in our archives and there’s still a lot of work to be done. But as we amass more and more properly tagged posts, this feature should become more useful.

>> User-generated Tagging: Registered users can also add tags to posts. We’d really appreciate it if everyone used the feature only when really necessary, and not to post tags like “you stink!” We’re taking the time to tag our posts and will do the best we can to make them useful, but sometimes we’re sure you’ll see one we should have added. We will remove offensive tags, just like we remove offensive comments.

>> Choices in Views: You now have a choice in how you view DCist’s home page: at the top right corner, you’ll see a new dropdown menu that lets you choose between the standard “Full” view, a “Summary” view that increases the number of posts you see on the front page but reduces how much you see of the bottom posts, and a “Favorites” view, which shows you new posts according to their “recommended” rank.

We hope you find these new features and options to be helpful additions to your user experience, and again, thanks so much for your patience while our tech team does their thing.