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I don't think the pod bay has a "meta" so I'll try to ask here?

I dropped this link into the pod bay, hoping to see the link in blue font. Instead I got a vanity picture of Matt Damon and a summary of a Wikipedia article.

The stackexchange chat function overrode my link and plopped a big thing in its place that I didn't want there. Is this a chat-bug or a chat-feature by design?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Damon#Early_years:_1988.E2.80.931996

But all I got is this lousy photo:

enter image description here

Please do not add the bug tag to my question! It attracts people who come and zero-out the question by adding the by-design tag. I do not know if this is a bug yet or not, this is why I'm asking the question.

I'm not prepared yet for the by-design tag-putters!

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    $\begingroup$ It's not a bug. I'd add [status-by-design], but I suspect that won't be welcome. If you want to avoid the onebox effect put something else in the chat item: Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Damon#Early_years:_1988.E2.80.931996 $\endgroup$
    – Jon Ericson
    Oct 27, 2016 at 4:15
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    $\begingroup$ If you click the "Matt Damon" link, it takes you to that exact link. It just turns the link into a preview. $\endgroup$
    – Phiteros
    Oct 27, 2016 at 4:47
  • $\begingroup$ @JonEricson that's exactly the answer I needed, thanks! If you can leave it as such I can accept it and close this off. I or you can also adjust the question if it helps. Movie stars get their mug exposed offen enough. :) $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Oct 27, 2016 at 5:14
  • $\begingroup$ FWIW, I'm not exactly sure why you would want to avoid this effect, for the reason Phiteros mentioned. $\endgroup$
    – called2voyage Mod
    Oct 27, 2016 at 13:21
  • $\begingroup$ @called2voyage the link I pasted was a link to a specific sub-section of the article - the part where he drops out of Harvard. I was hoping for just a one-line link, not a big block of irrelevant text and a mug shot of a movie star. I didn't realize that if you include the link with text it shows as a normal style link, but if you don't type some stuff, it will summon an unwanted/unexpected banner and photo. Imagine every time you want to add a link to a subsection of some text a UI decides to put a giant banner and photo. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Oct 27, 2016 at 14:15
  • $\begingroup$ @JonEricson I've recovered sufficiently, feel free to "by-design" me ;-) $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Feb 19, 2019 at 4:45
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    $\begingroup$ Okie doke. Added. ;-) $\endgroup$
    – Jon Ericson
    Feb 19, 2019 at 6:15

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As pointed out in @JonEricson's comment, this is how it is meant to work, and so in their infinite wisdom the OP was correct in not including the tag.

When you paste a bare url, apparently it is ayor. If there is a picture of Matt Damon associated with it, we'll have to see him again.

Most of the time this won't happen; paste a bare link to most news articles and only the url shows up. Post a url to an image, and the image shows up.

But paste a bare url to a Wikipedia site or some other sites such as those on this list and the onebox effect may be invoked.

As also mentioned in that comment, if you add something else to the line along with the url that's not interpreted as a part of the url, such as See: url or @user url then you can rest assured that your chat post will remain Matt Damon-free.

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