# Option to not truncate GitHub/GitLab onebox **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature\ **Created:** [June 18, 2018, 9:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098 "2018-06-18T09:02:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 9:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/1 "2018-06-18T09:02:05Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Github boxes should be truncated](https://meta.discourse.org/t/github-boxes-should-be-truncated/22396): If there was a way to avoid content truncation on a per-link basis we could be posting links to our GitHub-specific documentation and make it searchable here on Meta, e.g: [https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md) I’ve seen several examples of other open source forums that could benefit from this. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 9:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/2 "2018-06-18T09:04:55Z")
Why would we want this? The only way it would be searchable here is if it was duplicated, which isn’t particularly helpful. I find the “helpful” feature of onebox expanding the first ~30 lines of a github readme file to be quite the opposite, 75% of the time.. I can’t imagine why I would ever want it to expand to {infinity} lines. ---
**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 11:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/3 "2018-06-18T11:04:41Z")
It makes it so that our duplicate post checker can match users up with external docs such as this one. For example the NPM community [also has a use for this](https://npm.community/t/auto-closing-issues-on-this-new-platform/239/3?u=erlend_sh). They have a [TROUBLESHOOTING.md](https://github.com/npm/npm/blob/latest/TROUBLESHOOTING.md) file that would ideally show up in our similar posts search when users are writing support topics. ---
**Author:** ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 1:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/4 "2018-06-20T01:06:54Z")
Unlimited is hugely risky, but maybe for a feature that adds a hint to truncate less … its is very hard to wrangle, only way I can think of is by abusing `#` ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 3:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/5 "2018-06-20T03:09:12Z")
I’m not entirely clear how this is useful to anyone. The clickable link to the troubleshooting doc should appear, so there is one standard place for that information to be. Duplicating it in some weird onebox-y partial way is a net negative, duplicating it _entirely_ is massively negative. They could include a TL;DR summary at the top if they have an abbreviated version. I took a look at [https://github.com/npm/npm/blob/latest/TROUBLESHOOTING.md](https://github.com/npm/npm/blob/latest/TROUBLESHOOTING.md) and it doesn’t look amenable to a 3-bullet-point version to me? ---
**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2018, 9:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/option-to-not-truncate-github-gitlab-onebox/90098/6 "2018-09-03T09:03:50Z")