lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm  | 4 ++--
 lib/PublicInbox/View.pm | 2 +-

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
index c75aa0e166ec3709515d0a3825c789006ec5d0fd..2f0c09fb843e770b9307fcca31405ec4fd362275 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/MID.pm
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ }
 
 # this is idempotent
 sub mid_compressed {
-	my ($mid) = @_;
+	my ($mid, $force) = @_;
 
 	# XXX dirty hack! FIXME!
 	# Some HTTP servers (apache2 2.2.22-13+deb7u5 on my system)
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ 	# I'm not yet sure if it's something weird with my rewrite rules
 	# or what; will need to debug...
 	return sha1_hex($mid) if (index($mid, '%') >= 0);
 
-	return $mid if (length($mid) <= MID_MAX);
+	return $mid if (!$force && length($mid) <= MID_MAX);
 	sha1_hex($mid);
 }
 
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/View.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/View.pm
index 55e12f261cb851517be1e596281b7a2356f39550..e7ca73dc0660aa79054cf5b1acc38e6a78cff249 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/View.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/View.pm
@@ -477,7 +477,7 @@ }
 
 sub anchor_for {
 	my ($msgid) = @_;
-	'm' . mid_compressed(mid_clean($msgid));
+	'm' . mid_compressed(mid_clean($msgid), 1);
 }
 
 sub simple_dump {