How do trade threads work?
Every trade can get its own discussion thread, and the channel that decides where it opens is the Forum channel on the Channels card. The Trade Threads card on the same tab has two switches: Open a discussion thread on every trade (on out of the box) and Ping both team roles in the new thread (off o
Short answer
Every trade can get its own discussion thread, and the channel that decides where it opens is the Forum channel on the Channels card. The Trade Threads card on the same tab has two switches: Open a discussion thread on every trade (on out of the box) and Ping both team roles in the new thread (off out of the box). Press Save thread settings after changing either.
Where to find it
On the website: press Teams in the sidebar, open the Trades tab, and scroll to the Trade Threads card.
On your phone: tap More → Teams, pick Trades from the Choose a section dropdown, and scroll down.
The two switches
- Open a discussion thread on every trade — on, every trade card gets a discussion thread hanging off it. Off, the trade card just posts in the channel with no thread. One caveat: this switch only bites in an ordinary text channel. In a forum channel every trade is a forum post, and a forum post is a thread — there is no way to post one without.
- Ping both team roles in the new thread — on, the bot posts one message inside the new thread pinging both teams' roles, so the two owners land in the discussion straight away. Off, the thread opens quietly. It starts off, so nobody gets pinged unless you choose it.
What actually happens when a trade posts
The bot needs somewhere to put the trade. It looks for a channel in this order and uses the first one it finds:
- The Forum channel on the Channels card of this tab.
- Your trade announcements channel.
- Your trade-block channel.
If none of those is set, the trade is agreed but nothing posts publicly.
What happens next depends on what kind of channel it landed in:
- A forum channel — each trade becomes its own forum post, with the trade card as the opening message. This is the tidiest result, and it is what the Forum channel picker is for — that picker only offers forum channels.
- An ordinary text channel — the trade card is posted into the channel first, and then — if the thread switch is on — the bot opens a thread hanging off that message. The card going up first is deliberate: if the thread cannot be created, you lose the thread and keep the trade, rather than the other way round.
Either way, if the ping switch is on, the ping lands inside the thread the moment it opens.
The announcement channel is a separate thing
If you have set an Announcement channel on the Channels card, and it is not the same channel the trade posted into, the bot also drops a short attention-grabbing message there — the two team names and a link through to where the voting happens.
So announcement channel and forum channel are two different jobs. The forum channel is where the trade lives; the announcement channel is a signpost pointing at it. Setting only the announcement channel still works — it becomes the place trades post — but then you get no separate signpost, because the bot will not announce a channel to itself.
Common problems
- I turned threads off and trades still get threads. Your trades post into a forum channel. A forum post is a thread by nature — the switch only changes what happens in ordinary text channels.
- Trades suddenly started pinging the team roles. The ping switch is on. Turn Ping both team roles in the new thread off and press Save thread settings — threads open quietly from then on.
- No thread appeared. Three causes. The thread switch is off; or the trade posted into a plain text channel and the bot was not allowed to create a public thread there; or no trade channel is set at all so nothing posted. Check the Trade Threads card and the Forum channel picker.
- Nobody notices the threads. Two tools reach people: the ping switch above puts a ping inside each thread, and the announcement channel drops a signpost where everyone reads. Set the announcement channel on the Channels card to a different channel from the one trades post into.
- Old trades did not get threads. Nothing here goes back over trades that already posted.