I’d like to suggest a new feature that would make a huge difference for accessibility and engagement in the Discourse platform: native support for recording and posting audio messages directly in topics and replies, along with automatic audio-to-text transcription (similar to what Instagram and WhatsApp offer). I saw some discussions about plugins and components for this capability, including the information that the one available it is not working now. As I do not have the expertise to even install a plugin from github myself and try, a native tool embedded in the system just with an enable/disable toggle would be wonderful for lay end users like me =)
Why this feature?
For many people, typing is not always the most effective or accessible means of communication. This may include:
People with disabilities or temporary injuries that make typing difficult.
Community members who prefer speaking due to literacy levels or comfort.
Users on mobile who want faster, hands-free communication.
Allowing users to record and post audio (voice notes) including in comments directly would dramatically reduce participation barriers and make Discourse communities more inclusive.
Why is transcription important?
Automatic transcription of voice messages would ensure that all users—including those who can’t listen to audio (for example, due to hearing impairments or when they’re in a quiet environment)—can still participate and engage fully with content on the platform.
Integrating this natively (as Instagram, WhatsApp, or Google Messages do), would bring Discourse platforms closer to state-of-the-art inclusivity and accessibility standards.
What has been tried so far?
I saw there have been previous community solutions:
However, most of these are either not actively maintained, not fully integrated, or lack transcription features. There is clear ongoing interest from the community regarding audio features and integrated voice-to-text.
Suggested functionality
Allow direct recording of audio (voice notes) in the composer for topics and replies.
Support uploading audio files as an alternative.
Integrate with a speech-to-text service to automatically generate and display a transcript with each audio post.
Option to edit or correct transcriptions before posting.
Moderation controls to manage and review audio content.
Closing
This feature would set Discourse apart as an inclusive, modern platform that supports a diverse range of users and situations.
Thank you for considering this! I (and others in the community) would be really excited to see any movement in this direction.
I would love this personally. I broke my hand last year and while the apple dictation works pretty well I would have liked to have been able to do it directly in discourse too. That said personally I tend to waffle when I dictate!
I also would like this for my family forum where among other things we share and talk about photos. Being able to record a message so the voice is captured and then to see that transcribed would be absolute gold.
This seems like something that should be handled on the computer side of things. Learning to use one dictation system and make it work seems hard enough. Having a different one on every piece of software you use seems like it would be terrible. Trying to support dictation on multiple platforms through the browser also seems untenable.
Wouldn’t you rather see that the voice-to-text actually worked before it was uploaded to a forum? Doesn’t voice-to-text work better on your own computer where it can be trained to your own voice?
I’m all for supporting all kinds of users, but I don’t see how it makes sense for every single web application to be responsible for transcription. We don’t expect Discourse to read text to the blind, Discourse provides HTML that the application that the user chooses can work with.
Accessibility is one use case (probably the main one) but not the only one.
Since a forum is meant to facilitate meaningful interactions and build community, offering more than one way to share a thought seems valuable. I don’t know how complex this would be from a development perspective, or whether it would be worth the effort, but I keep thinking about how easily people express themselves in WhatsApp groups simply because the option to record a voice note is right there. It would be wonderful to have something similar in a forum, where conversations can be better organized by topics and categories.
I myself often use Instagram’s feature that transcribes voice notes instead of playing them. It’s convenient when I don’t want to use headphones, hold the phone to my ear, or play audio out loud. Having a similar option in a forum would make voice notes far more practical. And personal.
Of course, forums are not exactly designed for people who don’t like to read or write, or who find it too much trouble to switch between apps just to copy and paste transcribed text. But in my case, most people in the forum I manage access Discourse from their mobile devices rather than from computers. I imagine that this changes how and when they participate. Many might give up on posting simply because they can’t type much at that moment. Being able to speak and post a voice note, or even better, to transcribe speech to text and edit it later,would make a big difference.
On the other hand, voice notes make moderation more challenging, so this is something we need to think through collectively, considering as many different user scenarios as possible.
I see. It’s because I’m old. I just hate talking to a computer. Even when it would obviously be faster than my insistence on scrawling on the keyboard on my phone.
Having an interface that allowed you to record or upload an audio file and then transcribe it shouldn’t be that hard. I think a theme component could do the the upload part and maybe the existing AI plugin could handle the transcription. (And the funny thing is that I’ve spent the past couple or three weeks on an Open Source transcription tool!)
Well, recording isn’t actually new request, and it was earlier resonable hard to get working right. But — a forum doesn’t take pictures or video, so why audio should or would be any different? We all have devices that can do that and the rest is just one nice player
Well, I understand your point, but it’s not quite the same nature of medium.
In a forum we are generally sharing images created by someone else, but voice notes usually contain your own voice in a more personal way. At least this is the objective.
The effort involved in producing your own photos, videos, and voice notes is quite different — and voice notes are usually the quickest and most direct way to share a thought. Taking or selecting a photo, or recording and uploading a video, often requires more steps.
But with audio, especially if the feature is embedded in the tool you are already using, you can simply speak and send. It’s a lower barrier to contribution, which is why I see value in having that option in a forum setting.
I even see more value in the capability of transcribing and having both, audio and text, because of the moderation and search challenges the audio only could bring.
I’d like to +1 on Suelen’s idea. My wife and her sister have Parkinsons disease and they use siri for sending every message and email. I watch and reflect on the details of their use every day and think of how non-disabled folk could also better interact with their software via voice.
While Discourse is great on many fronts, it’s primary differentiator to old BBS systems is that it works well on phones and tablets as well as in the browser. And phones are primarily voice devices.
If I were to create a test suite for what Discourse needs to be in 2030-35 it would include the ability to go to a discourse site with a phone and just navigate the community aurally. Ideally one could navigate it’s categories and threads via just voice and audio and text to speech the content when requested.
Far more important than ai and much simpler to do. And while every device will have it’s own way of transcribing speech to text and correct mistakes, you don’t want to rely on these systems being good, free or consistent if you can help it.
It would be a huge feature because Discourse has so much to it, and I’m curious what the costs of the transcriptions would be like, but I think it really is a very worthwhile suggestion to look into.
Meillä periaatteessa, ja käytännössä, on jo tarvittavat työkalut jos niitä vain käyttää. Minä puhuin tämän tekstin suomeksi. Sen jälkeen ai käänsi sen englanniksi ja kaikki on hienosti.
