Adding youtu.be links next to topic titles
The discussion revolves around how to display a youtu.be link next to a topic title in Discourse. Richie asked how some topics have this link while others do not, despite having a YouTube video in the first post.
codinghorror explained that the link appears when a URL is pasted in the topic title. Richie found this tip helpful and was unaware that posting a URL in the title would achieve this.
Falco and Stephen provided insights into why not all topics with YouTube videos display the youtu.be link. The link is only shown when the topic is mainly about the link, and it’s not always helpful as it takes users off-site. Falco noted that many topics have links or multiple videos, making it unnecessary to highlight one in particular.
codinghorror mentioned that the feature is similar to Reddit’s and is intended to make it easy to start a topic based on a link from another site. Richie agreed with Falco and Stephen, and appreciated the clarification on the feature.
Hi everyone.
This is probably really obvious but I’ve searched and searched and can’t find the answer.
Every topic here has a Youtube video in the first post. What causes some of the topics to have a ‘youtu.be’ link next to them and the bulk of them not!? 
Is this a setting on the video itself, rather than something in Discourse?!
Create a new topic, paste the link in as the title.
Posting a URL in the topic title would have never occurred to me!
Thanks Jeff 
Having thought about it some more, is there a reason all topics with a youtube video in the first post don’t have that ‘youtu.be’ link presented next to them? 
We have several hundred topics in our ‘videos’ category and only four have this ‘youtu.be’ link visible 
Yes.
When a topic is mainly about a link, you can paste it on the title and make the link more prominent in the UI.
That said, many topics have links (or multiple videos) in the OP and no need to highlight one in particular.
The link takes the user off-site, so having them there isn’t always helpful - after all it takes focus away from the community, rather than encouraging them to watch the video via an embed.
Usually communities share such links to discuss them, which makes the embed preferable. If anything there’s a case for an option to not link off-site to things which can be embedded locally.
Really? Because it says so right in the topic creation form..
Of course, users never read any words on the screen, as we well know. No need to prove a point that’s been proven zillions of times.
This is a “reddit-alike” feature, to make it easy to start a topic along the lines of
Holy cow! Did y’all see this crazy article on this crazy website?!
Try going to reddit and ‘starting a topic’ – they’re usually based on links from other sites. This way it’s faster to start a new topic with just a link.
Yes, very good point, every single topic in our Videos category would have the highlight otherwise - not much point in doing that really 
Agreed - especially in our use case
Amen to that my brother
Thanks for the link too, interesting that fourteen years after your blog post every word still stands true today
