When your office changes from a physical place to a virtual space, there comes a time when you realize an important member of your team is missing. It may not be apparent at first—the feeling comes gradually.

After counting everyone twice and checking that we hadn’t mislaid our COO in the wilderness, we had to face the facts.

What we had lost was our coffee machine.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081346843_2_7836815556.jpg)

The deserted kitchen at Meilisearch's parisian office

With it, we lost the informal discussions we used to have in our kitchen looking out on the rooftops of Paris. The small details of our coworkers' lives we learned day by day, the discoveries—that another team slew a bug, or that someone had a ready-made answer to a question bothering you: all these pouches of intimacy and shared knowledge had to be created anew.

Meilisearch veterans had a structure to fall back on, but **for new arrivals, this level of trust had to be built from scratch, without a physical office**. In this article, we'll take you with us on that journey and explain how we encourage informal discussions at Meilisearch.

We pay special attention to our onboarding process
--------------------------------------------------

**We try to make sure each new member of the team feels welcome on their first day.** We want to take away as much stress and awkwardness as we can to make the first few weeks as smooth as possible.

Before the start of the contract, we schedule meetings with each and every person in the team. **The lineup of the calendar for the first two weeks is already clear**: our priority is for new Meilisearch members to chat with everyone. They typically last 25 to 50 minutes and can be with 1–3 persons at a time. The goal of these meetings is for everyone to explain what they do at Meilisearch of course, but also to break the ice for further discussion down the line: it's the mixing of the coffee beans!

In between chatting with their new coworkers, the new recruits can read our Team Page on Notion. **Each person has a detailed profile** with their communication preferences and their preferred work style, their quirks and the qualities they value, what may drive them nuts and what people might misunderstand about them.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PXL_20211119_081317469_2_38cd23ba4c.jpg)

To be or not to be, that is the question

Each member can then share anything they like about them. We believe our biographies are a concentrated dose of a few months of small talk, all in one place!

We create dedicated spaces in our chat and schedules
----------------------------------------------------

**We are very proud of our team: it’s a collection of people with diverse interests and backgrounds.** We believe this stems from our roots at Ecole 42, but that’s a subject for our next blogpost! This makes our discussions interesting and sundry.

Our Slack channels reflect some of that range: we have channels dedicated to cats, food, cinema, games, music, books and of course: the #**random** channel! This is where we speak of our travels, share photos of the first snow, and recommend pieces of content that we enjoyed. We even developed an emoji-rating system for movies and cultural experiences!

Any Meilisearch employee who wishes to can join the Random Coffee channel and **be randomly matched with another person for a coffee later that week**. It's a time to chat about anything and everything—the brewing time.

We use huddles on Slack for weeklies and other meetings. But sometimes, we need a [rubber duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) who talks and listens to us rather than the written chat! Our team is most fond of Discord and coding together with their mics on.

We organise special events
--------------------------

We started doing after-work hangouts on Zoom during the first lockdown in France. Then there was a slight decline… until we realized we really missed them! **These events are not mandatory.** We play games together: Skribbl, Gartic Phone, Codenames… and anything we feel like!

Twice a year, we also have our in-person get-togethers: the offsites! **We strive to make them a comfortable and enjoyable experience for everyone, accommodating people’s needs and leaving plenty of pockets of free time.** We share some experiences and have fun together. These are our coffee add-ons: the milk, cream, glitter, and sprinkles on top!

We're always chasing the perfect blend
--------------------------------------

We believe Meilisearch as an organisation has a responsibility to build and provide the space and tools to make communication possible. **But we also firmly believe that the next step is giving the wheel to our team members and trusting them to have the discussions they want.**

We are always testing and researching ways to give our team members a leg up on the long process of building connections. As such, we expect to release a part two of this blog post as soon as we discover new flavors to add to our coffee mix!

P.-S. The Team Tea of Meilisearch wishes to reassure any future coworker that yes, we do have tea, and no, we aren’t all coffee maniacs.

Let it brew: how we create space for casual conversation within our remote team

For the second year in a row, Meilisearch participated in Hacktoberfest. Find below the recap of the event that was initially shared internally at Meilisearch.

We'll be part of Hacktoberfest 2022! And we hope to see even more contributors getting involved.  
  
Find below the slides of this presentation:

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_49_2_717c3abd1c.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_51_2_7f1cc7df8d.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_52_2_ccaf431921.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_53_2_be872350aa.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_54_2_3_758dee7af0.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_55_2_99f306c4c3.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_56_2_0185e812be.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_57_2_0e9fb3fe26.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_58_2_4681a1e6c3.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_12_59_2_b411d671bc.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_00_2_dddb055c1e.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_01_2_6a3b6c6c8a.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_02_2_1_a9fe38de82.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_02_1_2_57b91edfaf.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_03_2_15497fbba8.png)

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/Capture_d_e_cran_2021_11_29_a_12_13_04_2_fe4319c582.png)

Hacktoberfest 2021 recap

One of the main responsibilities of the developer relations team at Meilisearch is to help our open-source search engine reach as many developers as possible. This involves, among other missions, participating in conferences and events.

Conference organizers usually publish a Call for Papers / Proposals (CFP), which is an open invitation for speakers to apply to their event, usually with a title and an abstract at minimum. Over the last year, I’ve had to submit—or help colleagues submit—numerous talk suggestions to conferences. Being a novice in the field, I set out to discover some of the secrets to successfully responding to a CFP.

I read a lot of articles and even listened to an hour-long presentation about CFPs so you don’t have to 🙌 In this article, I’ll present what I’ve learned based on the most recurrent recommendations.

The abstract
------------

The abstract is your pitch, it’s what is going to be published. You should focus on this first as it is what helps people decide if they want to attend your talk.

### ✅ Do's

**Be direct and concise**

Put yourself in the evaluator’s shoes. If you have 100 submissions to go through, you’ll appreciate the ones which get straight to the point. You should make your abstract easy to skim-read.

**Target your audience**

You need to know your audience,  their needs, and interests. Are you going to talk to developers, designers, executives, or some other audience?

Ok, but if it’s your first time attending a particular conference, how do you get this information?

Well, sometimes conference organizers provide an audience profile. But if it’s not the case, here are some good tips by the great [VM Brasseur](https://twitter.com/vmbrasseur):

*   you can contact them and ask for it

If it’s too late for that:

*   check the sponsorship prospectus: there’s usually information about the audience
*   check the schedule and social media of past editions of the event

**Establish a challenge or a problem**

Your talk should be about something that interests you. It could be a problem you’ve had, or that you’ve helped someone with. It doesn’t matter so much if you have managed to solve the problem or not. You can share your experience and what you’ve learned from it.

It can also be a widespread opinion you disagree with, a tool that has helped you, or something you wish you had known when you started.

Don’t forget, people like hearing stories, so if you think it’s something worth sharing, go for it. If you're not sure, assume that your story may be interesting to others. So go for it, what's the worst that can happen? Either way, try to present it in a way that gets your audience's interest, that’s why it’s important to know who you are going to be talking to.

**Specify the format of the talk you are giving**

The potential audience wants to know what to expect: is it going to be a workshop, a case study, a live demo? We all have different learning styles. Knowing the format beforehand will help the conference participants select the right talk for them.

**Specify the background knowledge the audience should have**

Should the audience know a particular programming language? Is it suitable for beginners? Giving this type of information will avoid wasting the time of the attendees.

**List key takeaways for your audience**

There is a statement from Sarah Mei that stuck with me:

> _People don’t go to talks for the content. People go to talks because they think they’ll become more badass. So help them out with that!_

People want to know what they will learn from your talk, the specific benefits they’ll get from it, what they will be able to do after your talk that they could not do before.

### ❌ Don'ts

**Don’t pitch your company / organization / product**

Nobody wants to hear a sales pitch. Your proposal will be rejected if it looks like a commercial in the slightest.

If you want to talk about something cool your company does, focus on the problem solved.

A little trick is to do what the dotConferences organizers have named the _Steve test_. Imagine an attendee named Steve, seated at the front row. Steve is so stubborn you know he would never use your product. The challenge is to make your talk as engaging and insightful to Steve as to anyone else. It will only work if you focus on the technical insights rather than your product. You can include your product along with alternative solutions and present the benefits and downsides.

**Don’t be aggressive or condescending**

Please have your abstract reviewed by a colleague or friend, preferably a native speaker. Someone who might identify this kind of language or tone you may not have intended to have.

**Don’t present your solution as the perfect one**

Be humble. You may have a great solution, but it cannot fit every need and context. You don’t want to sound arrogant so talk about when your solution is appropriate and when it’s not.

**Don’t include identifying information (name, title, company)**

This information belongs in the bio, not in the abstract. A lot of conferences practice blind reviewing to ensure submissions are reviewed fairly, so if you don’t want your proposal sent back for modifications or rejected, it’s better to avoid sharing these details.

**Don’t deceive the participants**

Don’t make promises you are not going to fulfill. Maybe you will get more people to attend your talk, but at what cost? Leaving the audience with a feeling of disappointment?

#### Standard formula

If you are new to CFPs you may want to stick to the following structure when writing abstracts:

*   Start with a strong introductory sentence that grabs attention (why is your topic important or relevant)
*   Detail paragraph: specific points you are going to address, give people an idea of what to expect
*   List audience takeaways
*   Closing paragraph (if needed)

The title
---------

*   Write it at the end, once you have finished writing the abstract
*   Avoid jokes: you never know how they will be perceived
*   Be polite
*   You can go for clickbait, it works
*   Keep it short, less than 50 characters

In his 2016 “[_Three tips for getting a talk accepted at Fluent_](https://medium.com/@bentlegen/three-tips-for-getting-a-talk-accepted-at-fluent-9eff841efc54)”, Ben Vinegar, gives really good examples of how to modify titles to engage the audience and show your unique perspective:

> '_How to use Angular'_ can be transformed into '_How we use Angular at my organization'_.

> '_How to get involved in open source'_ can be tweaked to become '_How I got involved in open source and you can too'._

Points worth remembering
------------------------

*   You are trying to persuade people to spend X minutes of their time listening to your presentation
*   Bullet points and short paragraphs are your friends
*   Focus on the audience, use “you” sentences
*   People like real experiences about real people: tell a story, create a narrative
*   You don’t have to be an expert on the subject, but don’t suggest subjects you are not qualified to talk about
*   You are the expert on your own experience

Conclusion
----------

I hope you’ll find this article useful. Of course, there is no magic formula for your application to be accepted. There are a thousand reasons why your talk can be rejected, even if you have the best title and abstract in the world. But it’s always better to stack all the odds in your favor!

* * *

_Picture by [Etienne Girardet](https://unsplash.com/@etiennegirardet) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)_

CFPs: Writing Recommendations

In this new version of Meilisearch, we focused on improving our error handler and reviewing our data collection policy—but don't worry, we still managed to squeeze in quite a few quality-of-life updates. We'll go through the most important bits here, but you can check out the [full changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0) on our GitHub release page.

Breaking change: Improved error handling
----------------------------------------

Our revamp of the error handler started with minor changes to field and value names: `errorCode`, `errorType`, and `errorLink` have been shortened to `code`, `type`, and `link` respectively, and the three possible values for `type` have been shortened to `invalid_request`, `internal`, and `auth`.

```JSON
 {
 "message": "authorization header is missing",
 "code": "missing_authorization_header",
 "type": "auth",
 "link": "https://docs.meilisearch.com/errors#missing_authorization_header"
 }
```

In a related change, the update response in case of an error has been altered.

```JSON
{
 "status": "failed",
 "updateId": 1,
 // ...
 "error": {
	 "message": "Document `:documentId` not found.",
 	"code": "document_not_found",
 	"type": "invalid_request",
 	"link": "https://docs.meilisearch.com/errors#document_not_found"
 },
 }
```

**Instead of being located directly in the body, error fields are now located in a nested error object.**

Most importantly, we added new error codes and changed some old ones to make resolving errors faster and more intuitive. [Take a look at our release changelog for a more detailed list of updates](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0).

Breaking change: `attributesToHighlight` now works on numeric values
--------------------------------------------------------------------

When you use the [`attributesToHighlight`](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/reference/api/search#attributes-to-highlight) search parameter in your query, returned documents will include a `_formatted` object containing matching query terms wrapped in `` tags.

Starting with v0.24, `attributesToHighlight` works with both strings and numeric values. This means numbers inside `_formatted` will be automatically converted to strings:

```sh
curl \
 -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/games/search' \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 --data-binary '{ "q": "101", "attributesToHighlight": ["id, title, description"] }'
```
```JSON
{
 "id": 101,
 "title": " The Wonderful 101: Remastered",
 "description": "Lead an army of 101 Wonderful Ones from around the world in this Unite Action game!",
 "_formatted": {
 "id": "101",
 "title": " The Wonderful 101: Remastered",
 "description": "Lead an army of 101 Wonderful Ones from around the world in this Unite Action game!"
 }
}
```

Telemetry page update
---------------------

By default, we collect usage data from all Meilisearch instances that do not explicitly opt out.  A few releases ago, we [added an article to our documentation website](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/what_is_meilisearch/telemetry) describing why and how we collect usage data from Meilisearch instances. With v0.24, we have expanded that article to include [an exhaustive list of all the collected data points](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/what_is_meilisearch/telemetry#exhaustive-list-of-all-collected-data).

As part of this renewed commitment to data transparency, we have also put in place a process for users to request the deletion of their collected data. Simply drop us a message at [privacy@meilisearch.com](/blog/p/49021b33-6bd0-45b6-b3d8-2b962acbaae9/privacy@meilisearch.com)ncluding your instance's UID and we'll remove everything from our records, no questions asked.

Privacy is a difficult subject in tech and there is no shortage of companies who repeatedly violate it out of carelessness or because they stand to profit from unethical data harvesting. We hope to speak more about this in an upcoming blog post, but the important thing to know is that we believe honest and constant communication about these issues is the only way to ensure your data is safe and properly handled. If at any time you feel something looks odd or suspicious, you can use the [privacy@meilisearch.com](/blog/p/49021b33-6bd0-45b6-b3d8-2b962acbaae9/privacy@meilisearch.com)ddress to contact us and hold us accountable.

Other changes
-------------

* Performance improvements related to the \`attribute\` ranking rule
* Maximum attribute size increased from 1000 to 65535 positions
* Fixed erroneous CSV Content-Type error message
* Improved error handling when importing an empty dump
* Fixed indexation performance when using mounted disks

Contributors
------------

Not going to lie, this is our favourite part of the release blog post: thanking everyone who has dedicated their time to improving Meilisearch. You're all wonderful 🤩

This month, we'd like to give a special shout out to [@Jhnbrn90](https://github.com/Jhnbrn90), [@nav1s](https://github.com/nav1s), [@nfsec](https://github.com/nfsec), [@patrickdung](https://github.com/patrickdung), [@sanders41](https://github.com/sanders41), [@CNLHC](https://github.com/CNLHC), [@fumblehool](https://github.com/fumblehool), and [@palfrey](https://github.com/palfrey).

* * *

That's it for this release. If you want more details on updates we didn't have the time to mention here, do check out our [release changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.24.0).

See you next month for v0.25!

What's new in v0.24

When new people join us at Meilisearch, we love the moment when they realize, "that was real!". We put a lot of emphasis on well-being at work during the recruitment process, and we are delighted to see that it is a tangible reality for our teams on a daily basis.

We are convinced that the well-being of our team members is a prerequisite for their performance at work. And for us, this doesn't mean office foosball, but two main axes: the balance between private and personal life and the daily application of our [values](https://handbook.meilisearch.com/guide/values.html) (commitment, quality and simplicity, openness) to enhance the role of all our individual positions in the service of the collective.

It is in this context that we adopted the 4-day week in early 2020. We explain why, how, and what we get out of it.

**In the beginning, there was confinement**
-------------------------------------------

Following the announcement of the first lockdown in France in March 2020, from days spent in a common space working, eating lunch, and taking our breaks together, we switched to 100% working remotely in our respective homes.

The organization of our work time changed radically: no more transportation time, fewer interruptions, more concentration. But also less break time, less informal discussions (which are also part of the work, let's not forget it), and days that had beginnings and ends that were less and less clear.

During this period our working days became longer in spite of ourselves, mainly because we no longer had the routine of arrivals and departures from the office to serve as a reference point.

We have always been very attentive to well-being at work, and naturally, a question arose: **how do we keep our work from taking a further toll on an already bad enough situation**? To remedy the fatigue that was beginning to grow, we switched to a 4-day week, without impacting our salaries.

**How does this work in practice?**
-----------------------------------

Although contractually nothing has changed, the members of Meili work in general **from Monday to Thursday.** The hours are not more important than if we had remained at a 5-day week.

**Friday is a "free" day**. There is no obligation to work, or not to work for that matter, which can be a good way to reduce the pressure we may have about our productivity. We don't ask anyone to indicate if they worked on a Friday. The only rules that exist are:

*   No internal meetings can be scheduled on a Friday
*   When requesting time off for one or more full weeks, Friday must be included in the request

**A system based on trust**
---------------------------

Not working on Fridays is **more of a** **flexibility than a rule**. We consider that everyone is responsible for their work organization and that each member of Meili must be free to use this day as they wish.

**To put it plainly**: if you feel that you have worked enough during the week, you do not work on Friday. If you are behind and haven't done everything you needed to do, then you have Friday to keep going.

This system assumes a **relation of mutual trust**. Each member must be honest and transparent about their workload and organization, make progress reports and alert their manager if they are overloaded. Conversely, the manager must be clear about their expectations and work objectives and be able to monitor their team without micromanaging.

**The benefits for us**
-----------------------

Since the first confinement in France, life has resumed its course but we have chosen to keep the 4-day week. First of all, because working remotely has definitely become part of our way of working (we are almost totally remote), but also because we have noticed that this has not affected our productivity, quite the contrary.

It is obvious that this initiative benefits a better **life balance**. For some, this day is dedicated to personal projects such as contributing to open source projects, for others it allows them to do more sports, to rest, to take care of their young children.

In short, the temporary adjustment we had put in place to address a specific problem worked so well that we adopted it permanently. The 4-day week is a very good way for us to encourage personal development and has given very good results at Meili. It is now part of our initiatives to promote well-being at work (we promise to tell you more about the rest of them very soon).

How we implemented the 4 day work-week

It's the middle of October and more than time for an update on how Hacktoberfest is going at Meilisearch.

Shared objectives update
------------------------

[As mentioned](/blog/contribute-hacktoberfest-2021/)hen Hacktoberfest started, we're setting **shared objectives** that will **benefit everyone**. Upon reaching each objective, we will contribute to a few organizations or support people we think are doing great work.

### Open-source maintainers

We chose open-source for our project to share a high-quality search solution, accessible to all, no matter their financial means. Sharing is the basis of what we do. [Meilisearch](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch) and [milli](https://github.com/meilisearch/milli) (Meilisearch's core engine) [have](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/blob/4bacc8e47d52f95a871028b0179b3dd4e2f9682d/meilisearch-http/Cargo.toml#L77-L81) [many](https://github.com/meilisearch/milli/blob/6e3b869e6a4d33bc814ebafe80d434035139e97d/milli/Cargo.toml#L7-L50) [dependencies](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/blob/4bacc8e47d52f95a871028b0179b3dd4e2f9682d/meilisearch-http/Cargo.toml#L24-L75), and most of them are other open-source projects. Their maintainers are not all part of large companies. By supporting some of these maintainers, we're contributing to open source and helping these developers to improve the projects we depend on.

These developers are the primary maintainers of:

*   [rust-sipash](https://github.com/jedisct1/rust-siphash) - [maintainer](https://github.com/jedisct1)
*   [vergen](https://github.com/rustyhorde/vergen) - [maintainer](https://github.com/CraZySacX)
*   [pin-project](https://github.com/taiki-e/pin-project) - [maintainer](https://github.com/taiki-e)

### Climate activists

We are aware that Meilisearch has an impact on our planet. We use servers, large datasets, computational power, all of which contribute to global warming. This is something we are not comfortable with, but it is an unavoidable aspect of being a tech company.

That's why we will support three organizations tackling the challenges of climate change:

*   [WWF](https://www.worldwildlife.org/)
*   [Surfriders Foundation Europe](https://surfrider.eu/en/)
*   [Reforest'Action](https://www.reforestaction.com/en)

### Organizations that promote diversity in tech

Meilisearch grows thanks to each team member's personality, skills, and experience. Having [different perspectives](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/fr/companies/meilisearch/values) in organizations leads to better decisions and is the only way to build a long-lasting company.

We will support three organizations that strive for diversity and inclusivity in software engineering:

*   [Black Girls Code](https://wearebgc.org/)
*   [Out in Tech](https://outintech.com/)
*   [Techfugees](https://techfugees.com/fr/)

### How to unlock the perks?

There are **three stages**. We will collectively reach them if the number of contributions to [Meilisearch open-source repositories](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Ahacktoberfest+org%3Ameilisearch&type=Repositories) is high enough. Each stage will unlock a larger amount of money for these three groups we want to support.

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/PR_a742efd3bd.png)

To get the total number of contributions, we will sum up the number of Hacktoberfest-related Pull Requests (PRs) merged in Meilisearch repositories at the end of the month. And we will add the last PRs not yet merged, but tagged with the `hacktoberfest-accepted` label.

In 2020, we had **49 PRs** merged during Hacktoberfest.  
This year, every 49 PRs merged, we will reach a new stage and **add 500€** to the financial support of each of the three groups.

We are already tracking the number of contributions: on October 20th, we had 114 PRs merged since the beginning of Hacktoberfest. Stage 1 & 2 have already been reached 🎉. We'll find a stretch goal later if we're able to reach stage 3 🤞.

A new way to contribute: Awesome Meilisearch
--------------------------------------------

To help you reach these stages, we're adding a new way to increase the number of contributions. You will still have to get a PR merged, but this PR does not have to close an issue.

We recently created the [**awesome-meilisearch**](https://github.com/meilisearch/awesome-meilisearch) repository. It contains a curated list of awesome Meilisearch resources, based on the [awesome list template](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome/blob/main/awesome.md).You can contribute to Meilisearch's Hacktoberfest goals by [adding new resources](https://github.com/meilisearch/awesome-meilisearch/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) to this repository. These resources have to be links to awesome blog posts, tutorials, demos, guides, talks, or just about anything else that teaches people how to do cool things with Meilisearch.

All accepted contributions qualify for the shared goals count!

We're counting on you!
----------------------

Consider keeping on contributing to Meilisearch repositories once you have successfully participated in Hacktoberfest. If you increase the number of merged PRs, you will help unlock new perks that benefit everyone.

Mid-October Hacktoberfest update

This month’s release brings you geosearch and support for CSV and NDJSON payloads! You can read the full [changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.23.1), but let's take a look at some of the main and breaking changes.

New feature: Geosearch
======================

Meilisearch v0.23 supports geosearch. This allows you to filter and sort results based on their location.

To start using this feature, the `_geo` field must be present in your indexed documents and added to either the `filterableAttributes` or `sortableAttributes` list, depending on the type of operation you’d like to perform.

To filter your results so that they are within a certain area, you can use the built-in `_geoRadius` filter rule. Let’s say we're in the center of Muscat and want to view restaurants that are within two kilometers:

```bash
curl  
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/restaurants/search' \
    --data-binary '{ 
		"filter": "_geoRadius(23.5880, 58.3829, 2000)" 
	}'
```

`_geoRadius` establishes a circular area based on a central point and a radius. It requires three parameters: `lat`, `lng`, and `distance_in_meters`—the latitude, longitude, and distance in meters respectively.

You can also sort search results in ascending or descending order based on their distance from a geographic location using `_geoPoint`_._ Let’s say you want to order documents based on how close they are to the Eiffel Tower:

```bash
curl \
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/restaurants/search' \
	-H 'Content-type:application/json'
	--data-binary '{
	  "sort": "_geoPoint(48.8583701,2.2922926):asc" 
	}`
```

The search response will return an extra field called `_geoDistance`. This is the distance in meters computed from the `_geoPoint` and the `_geo` coordinates of the search results.

New feature: support for NDJSON and CSV payloads
================================================

Meilisearch now accepts CSV and NDJSON along with JSON as data sources. You will now need to specify a Content-Type header for HTTP requests through tools like `curl`.

Both CSV and NDJSON offer better indexation performance, consume less RAM and are not as CPU-intensive as JSON. NDJSON is easier to validate and, unlike CSV, can handle nested structures.  

Breaking change: Content-Type headers are now mandatory
=======================================================

Since Meilisearch now supports JSON, NDJSON, and CSV, you need to specify content headers for HTTP requests through tools like `curl`.

*   `Content-Type: application/json` for JSON
*   `Content-Type: application/x-ndjson` for NDJSON
*   `Content-Type: text/csv` for CSV

An example of the JSON header when creating an index:

```bash
curl \
    -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --data-binary '{
      "uid": "movies",
      "primaryKey": "movie_id"
    }'
```

Contributors
============

A big thank you to all our contributors! We wouldn't have made it here without your support. This month, we want to send a special shout out to [@anirudhRowjee](https://github.com/anirudhRowjee), [@felixonmars](https://github.com/felixonmars), [@happysalada](https://github.com/happysalada), [@kappa-wingman](https://github.com/kappa-wingman), [@k-nasa](https://github.com/k-nasa), and [@shekhirin](https://github.com/shekhirin).

* * *

And that's all folks! Remember to check out the [changelog](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/releases/tag/v0.23.1) for the full release notes and see you next month!

What's new in v0.23

What is Hacktoberfest?
----------------------

[Hacktoberfest](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/) is an annual event that runs over October. Instead of celebrating the Bavarian culture (and sometimes drinking too many beers), this event aims at **supporting the open source community**.

2021 marks the eighth anniversary of the event launched by [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/). Over the years, Hacktoberfest has had a seminal role: it has given enough confidence to many developers to become a part of the open-source community. In 2020, around 170,000 developers participated in Hacktoberfest.

Why should you participate?
---------------------------

There are many different reasons why you should [contribute to open source](https://blog.shahednasser.com/how-to-participate-in-hacktoberfest-2021/#as-a-participant). But Hacktoberfest is about joining the community in a mutual effort to drive the growth of open source.

Your contributions are very valuable to any open-source project. Some of our most used tools were born outside the Meilisearch team, and we could not be grateful enough for the efforts of our open-source contributors.

And if you need an extra push, both DigitalOcean and Meilisearch are sending gifts to the contributors.  
DigitalOcean is going to give a T-shirt and a swag pack to the first 55,000 participants of Hacktoberfest.  
Meilisearch will send reusable insulated water bottles to all those who successfully participated in Hacktoberfest and contributed to the [open-source projects](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Ahacktoberfest+org%3Ameilisearch&type=Repositories) of Meilisearch (look for the repositories with the _hacktoberfest_ topic).  
  
We are also setting **shared goals** that all Meilisearch contributors can help to reach. These goals will unlock perks that will **benefit everyone**.  
We still have to define those perks and will update this blog post accordingly. Some of our ideas so far:

*   financial support to other open-source projects
*   supporting organizations with an environmental impact (like restoration of forests or ocean cleaning)
*   sponsoring organizations promoting diversity in software (like [Black Girls Code](https://wearebgc.org/)).

We would be happy to [hear your ideas](https://discord.gg/meilisearch)!

What happened last year at Meilisearch?
---------------------------------------

Last year, Meilisearch took part in Hacktoberfest [for the first time](/blog/hacktoberfest-with-meilisearch/)e encouraged contributions to the [core Meilisearch repository](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch) and to most of the tools we maintain: API wrappers, framework plugins, SDKs...

![](/blog/content/images/2021/09/all-sdk-s.svg)

Started from the bottom...

It was a real success: we merged over fifty contributors’ pull requests. It was twice more than in September 2020.

This year at Meilisearch
------------------------

With around thirty pull requests from external contributors merged in September 2021, we expect more contributions at this year’s Hacktoberfest.

![](/blog/content/images/2021/09/Group-81.svg)

... now we're here.

We’ve made [more repositories available](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Ahacktoberfest+org%3Ameilisearch&type=Repositories) for Hacktoberfest:

*   our [documentation repository](https://github.com/meilisearch/documentation)
*   the new tools that we’ve created: the [Dart SDK](https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch-dart), the [Ruby on Rails](https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch-rails) and [Angular](https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch-angular) integrations,  the [Gatsby](https://github.com/meilisearch/gatsby-plugin-meilisearch) and [Strapi](https://github.com/meilisearch/strapi-plugin-meilisearch) plugins

How can we help you?
--------------------

Contributing for the first time to an open-source project can be intimidating. That’s why we are happy to guide you step by step through this process. We have several [good first issues](https://github.com/search?q=meilisearch+label%3Ahacktoberfest+state%3Aopen+is%3Aissue&type=Issues) that can help you get started.

Feel free to ask any questions on the GitHub issues of [the corresponding repository](https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Ahacktoberfest+org%3Ameilisearch&type=Repositories), [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch/discussions), or on our [Slack workspace](https://slack.meilisearch.com/) (the [#hacktoberfest](https://meilicommunity.slack.com/archives/C02G1H43J2X) channel is the place to go, but you can also send direct messages to the Meilisearch team members).

We can’t wait to see your next commits 🚀

Contribute to Open Source during Hacktoberfest 2021

If you haven't heard it yet, [Meilisearch v0.22](/blog/whats-new-in-v0-22/)s out, and it comes with a highly requested new feature: sorting at search time.

Search-time sorting is when results are sorted according to parameters decided at query time. By default, Meilisearch orders results according to their [relevancy](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/core_concepts/relevancy), but you can configure it to let users decide at search time what results they want to see first.

Let me show you how powerful this feature is. If I wanted to search for a MacBook and sort the results by ascending price, I would send the following query:

```json
curl \
 -X POST 'http://localhost:7700/indexes/computers/search' \
 --data '{
 "q": "MacBook",
 "sort": [
 "price:asc"
 ]
}'

```

I could do the opposite and search by descending price. I would just need to replace `asc` by `desc` in my request.

The old way
-----------

Before Meilisearch v0.22, you could only sort search results using the [custom ranking rules](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/core_concepts/relevancy#custom-rules).

Thanks to the custom ranking rules, we could have our search results sorted by the numeric attribute of our choice. However, the sorting was not at search time, the sorting order was decided in our index settings.

To change the sort order of the search results in the user interface, we had to duplicate the index and set different custom ranking rules for each index.

That's what I did for our [MoMA demo](https://moma.meilisearch.com/) a few months ago. For those who missed it, the MoMA demo is a Meilisearch demo created with the artworks dataset of the [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.moma.org/) available in their [GitHub repository](https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/collection). You can learn more about the demo in [this blog post](/blog/demo-moma/) wanted the users to be able to sort the artworks by date, so I had to create three indexes:

\-  `artWorks` with the default built-in ranking rules  

\- `artWorksAsc` with a custom ranking rule for ascending sort

\- `artWorksDesc` with a custom ranking rule for descending sort

```javascript
// Get or create indexes
const artWorksIndex = await client.getOrCreateIndex('artWorks', { primaryKey: 'ObjectID' })
const artWorksAscIndex = await client.getOrCreateIndex('artWorksAsc', { primaryKey: 'ObjectID' })
const artWorksDescIndex = await client.getOrCreateIndex('artWorksDesc', { primaryKey: 'ObjectID' })

const defaultRankingRules = [
 'typo',
 'words',
 'proximity',
 'attribute',
 'exactness'
] 

const rankingRulesAsc = [
 'typo',
 'words',
 'proximity',
 'attribute',
 'exactness',
 'asc(DateToSortBy)' // ascending sort
]
const rankingRulesDesc = [
 'typo',
 'words',
 'proximity',
 'attribute',
 'exactness',
 'desc(DateToSortBy)' // descending sort
]

```

The duplication, or triplication, gave the impression of sorting at search time as Meilisearch is blazingly fast.

At that time, sorting was on our [roadmap](https://roadmap.meilisearch.com/), in the Under Consideration tab, and it was one of the most voted features (86 votes).

> We have a [public roadmap](https://roadmap.meilisearch.com/) where you can submit feature or integration ideas and vote for the existing ones.

With the new v0.22 sort feature
-------------------------------

Today, it's a reality. And I've updated the demo to integrate this feature. Let's go through what has changed.

### Behind the scenes

First of all, I have added the following line to the settings:

```javascript
sortableAttributes: ['DateToSortBy']

```

This addition is necessary because we need to inform Meilisearch of the attributes we want to use for sorting.

We only need one index (not three) and the default ranking rules. This has considerably reduced the back-end code. You can change the position of the `sort` rule to tune the relevancy of the search results according to your needs. By default, the `sort` rule in 5th position of the ranking rules to promote results relevant to the user's search.

You can learn more about the ranking rules and how they affect relevancy [here](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/core_concepts/relevancy).

And if you are curious about why the `sort` rule is in 5th position by default, you can check [this GitHub issue](https://github.com/meilisearch/MeiliSearch/issues/1680#issuecomment-915789791) where our Product Manager explains this choice.

With these modifications, the big block of code above has been reduced to the following line:

```javascript
// Get or create the index
const index = await client.getOrCreateIndex('artWorks', { primaryKey: 'ObjectID' })

```

Easy, right? But, what about the front end?

### In the spotlight

For this demo I used [Vue InstantSearch](https://github.com/algolia/vue-instantsearch/), combined with [Instant Meilisearch](https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch-js-plugins/tree/main/packages/instant-meilisearch). This connects the Meilisearch instance with the open-source [InstantSearch](https://github.com/algolia/instantsearch.js) front-end tools allowing us to customize the search environment effortlessly.

The previous code looked like this:

```javascript
<ais-sort-by
:items="[
 { value: 'artWorks', label: 'Featured' },
 { value: 'artWorksAsc', label: 'Date asc.' },
 { value: 'artWorksDesc', label: 'Date desc.' } 
]"
:class-names="{
 'ais-SortBy': 'MyCustomSortBy'
}"
/>

```

I just needed to transform it into this:

```javascript
<ais-sort-by
:items="[
 { value: 'artWorks', label: 'Featured' },
 { value: 'artWorks:DateToSortBy:asc', label: 'Date asc.' },
 { value: 'artWorks:DateToSortBy:desc', label: 'Date desc.' } 
]"
:class-names="{
 'ais-SortBy': 'MyCustomSortBy'
}"
/>

```

As you can see, instead of using 3 different indexes (`artWorks`, `artWorksAsc`, and `artworksDesc`), we only need to append the attribute's name to the `artWorks` index followed by the desired sort order, `asc` or `desc`.

```javascript
'artWorks:DateToSortBy:asc'
'artWorks:DateToSortBy:desc'

```

And this is it. Smooth and simple. You can test it [here](https://moma.meilisearch.com/).

![](https://unable-actionable-car.media.strapiapp.com/sortby_a3723cbe47.gif)

Web interface with the query "Magritte" sorting by ascending and then descending date gif

The end-user may not notice the difference, but resource-wise it's much more efficient.

Another great advantage of v0.22 is the new indexer. It's way faster than before, so if you're still using an older version of Meilisearch, I strongly encourage you to [upgrade it](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/update_and_migration/updating).

The demo source code is available on [GitHub](https://github.com/meilisearch/demos/tree/main/src/MoMA). I invite you to play with it, you can add other attributes to sort by, as long as they are strings or numeric values. For a more in-depth explanation of sorting, take a look at the [dedicated section](https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/getting_started/filtering_and_sorting#sorting) of the documentation.

* * *

_Picture by [Héctor J. Rivas](https://unsplash.com/@hjrc33) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)_

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