New here? Watch the explainer and how-to: https://youtu.be/f4vUM_DGjPM — a quick walkthrough from Kenny Katzgrau, publisher of redbankgreen and creator of Partyline.

Partyline is a free, open source WordPress plugin that lets anyone in your community send in a story, a tip, a moment, or just a cute dog photo. They can submit right from an installable app on their phone, or by text message via Twilio. Partyline optionally gives submissions a quick AI polish using OpenAI, and creates a draft post in your WordPress dashboard for you to review.

It’s the fastest way to turn real, spontaneous contributions into published content. Whether it’s breaking news or just something unexpected and delightful, Partyline brings your readers into the newsroom.

Made for local publishers who are short on time but big on community. Partyline is free and open source, released under the GPL.

Top 10 Uses for Partyline
A lovingly curated list from experience, originally shared with LINA Publishers in Australia

Cover stories you’d never get to otherwise, like proms, graduations, and scout ceremonies.
Post ridiculous stuff that wouldn’t fly as a “real” article, and watch the traffic surprise you.
File an initial post when a breaking story hits, straight from the street.
Capture the in-the-moment energy of a parade, protest, or town meeting.
Share sunsets and puppy pics, without feeling like a complete sellout.
Keep your advertisers happy by actually posting their community event (and looking cool doing it).
Turn your readers into local mini-celebrities, and spark conversations offline.
Give voice to people who never get quoted. Partyline lowers the barrier to entry.
Redirect PR people to a more productive outlet than your inbox.
Reclaim your newsroom’s social media power, because you were doing it before Facebook anyway.

External services

This plugin connects to the following third-party services. None of them are contacted until you configure the corresponding credentials on the Partyline settings page.

Twilio

Used to receive SMS submissions from your community and to download any media (photos) attached to those messages.

What is sent: when Twilio POSTs an inbound SMS to your site’s webhook URL, the plugin reads the message body, sender phone number, recipient phone number, and any attached media URLs. To fetch authenticated media files, the plugin makes outbound HTTPS requests to api.twilio.com (and to the redirected media CDN URLs Twilio returns) using your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token.
When it is sent: only when an SMS is received at the configured webhook URL and the message includes media attachments.
Service: Twilio, Inc. Terms of Service: https://www.twilio.com/legal/tos . Privacy Policy: https://www.twilio.com/legal/privacy .

OpenAI (ChatGPT)

Optional. Used to clean up spelling/grammar of submitted messages, generate post titles, and (in the app) transcribe voice dictation and draft a title and blurb.

What is sent: the text of a submission (from SMS or the app), plus a short instruction prompt, are sent to https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions. In the app, voice recordings are sent to https://api.openai.com/v1/audio/transcriptions (Whisper) to transcribe them, and the submitted photo may be included so the model can draft a fitting title and blurb. All requests use the OpenAI API key you configure.
When it is sent: only if you have entered an OpenAI API key in the Partyline settings, and only at the moment a submission is being processed into a draft post.
Service: OpenAI, L.L.C. Terms of Use: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use . Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy .

Cloudflare Turnstile

Optional. Used to verify that anonymous submissions and public applications come from a real person rather than a bot.

What is sent: when you configure a Turnstile site key, the public submission and application forms load Cloudflare’s widget script from https://challenges.cloudflare.com, and the visitor’s browser obtains a token. On submission, that token is sent to your server and verified against https://challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/siteverify using your Turnstile secret key.
When it is sent: only if you have entered a Turnstile site key in the settings, and only on the public submission or application forms. Without a key, a built-in math challenge is used instead and no third party is contacted.
Service: Cloudflare, Inc. Terms: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-terms/ . Privacy Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ .

Partyline: Reader-Submitted Stories for Local News and Magazines

External services