# Should onebox fall back on mini-onebox if no metadata is available?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [November 17, 2017, 9:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250 "2017-11-17T09:41:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![tophee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tophee/32/73406_2.png) [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 9:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250/1 "2017-11-17T09:41:54Z")

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I just realized that when I post this link with the intention to have it oneboxed:

> **[Public Register](https://www.codeofconduct.cloud/public-register/)**

it is rendered as an ordinary link because the website obviously doesn’t support OpenGraph. In cases where that happens, I tend to change the text so that the link becomes an inline link. And in that case it renders as a mini-onebox: [Public Register](https://cispe.cloud/publicregister/) Nice!

So I’m wondering: wouldn’t it make sense if the ordinary onebox would fall back on mini-onebox whenever no meta-data is available?

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### 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: [November 17, 2017, 9:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250/2 "2017-11-17T09:56:38Z")

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I am not sure this is relevant because mini one box is only supported for internal links by default in this release.

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### 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: [November 20, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250/3 "2017-11-20T00:56:32Z")

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There is a very very easy workaround here, just add a space prior to the link.

[Public Register](https://cispe.cloud/publicregister/)

```plaintext
  https://cispe.cloud/publicregister/

```

It should probably fallback if you have mini onebox enabled on all sites, and we may move to mini onebox enabled on all sites in a future release.

There is an element of risk cause some sites may have real bad metadata.

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### Author: ![icaria36](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/icaria36/32/426431_2.png) [@icaria36](https://meta.discourse.org/u/icaria36)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2017, 8:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/should-onebox-fall-back-on-mini-onebox-if-no-metadata-is-available/74250/4 "2017-11-20T20:50:14Z")

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For what is worth, I noted this behavior by coincidence and I wasn’t sure about what was going on - see [OneBox doesn't render boxes for Phabricator URLs - #6 by icaria36](https://meta.discourse.org/t/onebox-doesnt-render-boxes-for-phabricator-urls/74421/6).

The space trick is simple and very useful… once you know it. I had noted that (some? all?) external URLs show the page title when placed in the middle of a paragraph, but I hadn’t made an association to exploiting this feature as standalone link with an extra space.