Groups

Updated Sep 1, 2026

A group is a room with its own chat, its own discussions and its own library. There is one official space that every member is in, any number of public groups that any member can find and ask to join, and any number of private groups that exist only for the people invited to them.

The official space

Everyone with community access is a member of the official space, and it sits at the top of the community home. It is moderated by Whispertrades rather than by members, and its announcements channel is locked so that only Whispertrades posts there. Everything else in it is open.

Public groups

A public group is listed in the directory, where any member with community access can find it, read its description and ask to join. Create one from the Groups page with a name and a description of at least 20 characters. Whoever creates it is its owner.

You can own up to three public groups at a time, and you can create one once your account has been in the community a little longer than its first two weeks.

Before you join, the group's page shows you its name and description, how many members it has, when it opened, when it was last active, who runs it, and the names of the channels you would be able to post in. It does not show you anything written inside the room. Discussions are counted, never named.

Once you are in, a public group works like a private one. It has the same chat, discussions, library and activity, and you can share your work with it exactly as you would with any other group.

Two things about a public group are worth knowing before you join one or share into one:

Its members are whoever the owner approves. Anything shared with a public group is visible to everyone in it now and to everyone approved later. The audience is the room, including whoever joins it next.
Being in one together is not a connection. Sharing a public group with someone does not let either of you message the other. That takes a mutual follow, or a private group in common.

A public group also cannot be created by converting a private one. If you want a room people can find, open a new public group.

Who can get in

Every public group has a doorway, and its owner chooses which:

Ask to join. People send a request and the owner or a moderator answers it. This is the default.
Anyone can join. People join in one click and nobody reviews them first.
Invite only. The group stays listed but stops taking requests. This is how a full group pauses without disappearing.

Requesting to join

Ask to join from the directory or from the group's own page. You can add a short note if you want to make a case for yourself; it is optional, and the group's owner and moderators are the only people who read it.

The group's owner and its moderators see your request and either approve or deny it. Approval is immediate: you become a member and can open the group straight away. Nothing approves a request automatically, so a request that has had no answer simply has not been read yet.

A denial may carry a reason, and if one is written you will read it in full. It never names the person who decided.

A denial may also carry a waiting period before you can ask that group again: 7, 21, 45, 90, 180 or 365 days, or never for that one group. Most denials carry no waiting period at all. Any of them can be lifted by the group's owner at any time, and none of them affects any other group or anything else in the community.

Two other limits are worth knowing. You can ask any one group once a day. And a request nobody answers within 60 days expires on its own, which carries no waiting period, so you are free to ask again.

You can withdraw a request you have sent from the Groups page for as long as it is unanswered.

Private groups

Private groups are invite only. Nothing in one is visible to anybody who is not a member, and the group does not appear to anyone else.

Create one from the Groups page with a name and an optional description. Whoever creates it is its owner.

Inside a group

A group has up to six tabs:

Chat. Channels for fast, plain conversation.
Discussions. Longer threads worth keeping and coming back to.
Library. What has been shared with this group: backtests, reports, bots and the rest.
Activity. What members of this group are trading, if the group has that turned on. It shows work members have already shared, never anything they have not.
Members. Who is here, and their roles.
Requests. People waiting to join, for the owner and moderators of a public group.

Owners choose whether the group has chat, discussions or both, so a group that only wants one is not left carrying an empty tab.

Channels

Chat is organised into channels, which owners and moderators can create, rename, reorder and group into categories.

A group always keeps at least one channel members can post in, so a room can never be left readable but unanswerable.

Deleting a channel retires it. It disappears from the group for everybody, and it stays on record where only Whispertrades staff can read it. Nobody below staff can erase the history of a conversation that happened.

Roles

Can	Owner	Moderator	Member
Post, reply, react	Yes	Yes	Yes
Invite members	Yes	Yes	No
Answer join requests	Yes	Yes	No
Create and manage channels	Yes	Yes	No
Remove posts and members	Yes	Yes	No
Manage tags	Yes	Yes	No
Change group settings and surfaces	Yes	Yes	No
Change the doorway, or make the group private	Yes	No	No
Lift a waiting period	Yes	Yes	No
Promote and demote moderators	Yes	No	No
Transfer ownership	Yes	No	No
Delete the group	Yes	No	No

A group has exactly one owner. Ownership moves only by transfer, and when it does the previous owner stays on as a moderator, since they know the group best.

Invitations

Owners and moderators invite members by handle, in a public group as well as a private one. An invitation waits on the invitee's Groups page, where they can accept or decline, and whoever sent it can cancel it while it is still pending.

Somebody who has already asked to join is answered through the requests queue rather than invited around it.