Is it possible to have a multi-line/longer text field in the signup form?

[MachineScholar]

I think we should revisit this… Seems like it is quite a popular request and it should be in core Discourse. For example, when creating a custom user field, there could be a toggle to make it a textfield or a textarea (with an optional character limit).

This could allow for rich data for an LLM to consume via a custom tool which runs a Data Explorer query

Indeed just visiting the user-custom-fields tag reveals how popular and important they are to communities.

Multiline custom user field text box

How can we make the text box for user custom fields resemble the “About me” text box in profile settings? Or at least how can we make the fields multiline-friendly?

Textarea user field type

I would like to have a user field type that is for long-form text, so users could write paragraphs and have line breaks (and any markdown/HTML) preserved when it is shown in the user’s profile. Could I achieve this myself with limited coding knowledge? I have done a little with Javascript, but I admittedly find backend development intimidating. If this is best achieved through a custom plugin in the marketplace, what kind of budget should I expect to have?

I’d honestly be willing to just pay Discourse to add this to core