The attached patch makes it possible to make some links not descriptively if a variable for the link is defined and its value is not 'org-link. There are a few scenarios where this would be good. In org-ref I apply an advice to the activate-bracket-link function to undo the descriptive link showing for cite links which use the description for additional information like page numbers. Another use that inspired this is a set of commenting links that might look like: [[replace:JK some old text][some new text]] where it might be desirable to see the whole link, but keep other descriptive links in the descriptive form. Thoughts?