Private Topics Are Live on Common

Jay Peredo

• 3 min read
Private Topics Are Live on Common

Coordinate like a DAO. Talk like a group chat.

Public forums are the heart of onchain coordination. But sometimes, communities need private spaces to work through early ideas, contributor discussions, or alpha drops.

Now you can — all inside Common.

🔒 What Are Private Topics?

Private Topics are group-gated discussion spaces inside your Common forum.

Only members of a designated group (based on tokens, NFTs, or allowlists) can access the topic and its threads. Everyone else? Can’t see a thing.

🧠 Some Potential Use Cases

  • Textile Club DAO — token-holders brainstorm new merch collabs
  • Front Coins — gated coordination for community contributors
  • Gaming Guilds — strategy threads for competitive teams
  • Governance Pods — core team debates before launching proposals
  • Stealth Projects — test ideas with inner circle before going public
  • Partnership Collab — a dedicated space to collaborate on pre-launch partnerships
  • Exclusive Community Areas — Reward your top community members by giving them access to a private area of your community equipped with the coordination capabilities that will make them & your community thrive

Whatever your community structure, you can now spin up onchain-native, private, and fully searchable spaces for deeper collaboration.

👇 How It Works (in under 30 seconds)

  1. Create basic topic details or edit existing topic
  2. Select the private checkbox
  3. Assign a group to the topic
  4. Click Save

Only that group sees and participates in the topic from then on.

🛠 Features Built for Trust

  • ✅ Fully gated by group
  • 🔍 Threads show up in profiles & search only for members
  • 🧵 Members can create, comment, and vote — just like public threads
  • 🚫 Non-members see nothing, not even in topic dropdowns or search

🎯 Why This Matters

Communities now have one place for both public conversation and private coordination.

No more jumping to Telegram or Notion. No need for multisigs or off-platform gating. Just one stack — onchain, transparent, and community-first.

💻 Ready to Try It?

Go to Manage Topics → Toggle Private → Assign a Group

Let’s coordinate better — together, and in private.

FAQ: Private Topics on Common

Everything You Need to Know About Private Topics

Private Topics are now live on Common, empowering communities to create secure, group-gated spaces for focused discussion and coordination. Here's a detailed FAQ to help you understand how this feature works and how to get started.

🔒 What are Private Topics?

Private Topics are discussion spaces only visible to specific community groups. If you're not a member of the group or if your access has been explicitly revoked, the topic (and its contents) will be completely hidden.

🙋 Who can access a Private Topic?

  • Approved Members: Only members who are added to the group gating the private topic can access it.
  • Admins/Mods: Automatically have access by default.
  • Rejected or Non-Members: Cannot view, search, or interact with threads in the topic.

💬 What can approved members do in a Private Topic?

Participate

  • View threads
  • Create new threads
  • Create new comments
  • Upvote threads and comments

Search & View

  • Search for private content
  • See private topic threads & comments on their own profile
  • Be mentioned in private threads
  • See private topic threads & comments in other members’ profiles
  • See private topic threads in general forum views

🛑 What happens if a non-member tries to interact with a Private Topic?

They’ll:

  • See topics grayed out in the topic selector
  • Be blocked from creating or viewing threads
  • Not see private content in search results or profiles
  • Receive error messages with clear feedback when attempting to view private topic

Non-members also will not be able to see private topic content in global, general forum views, and in the profiles of private topic members.

🔎 Will private content appear in search or profiles?

Only if you're a member of the group gating that topic.

  • Private threads show up in search and profiles only for approved members.
  • Non-members won’t see any trace of private discussions.

🔧 What happens to existing threads if a topic becomes private later?

Threads posted before the topic was made private will:

  • Remain visible in the member’s profile
  • Non-members will not be able to view or interact with the full thread

↩️ How Can I Switch a Topic from Private to Public?

As a community admin, click edit on the group that is gating the private topic and then remove the topic from the gated topic section.

Considerations:

  • Even though a success message will appear after saving, a private topic cannot be made public again via the topics page
  • Once a private topic becomes public, all of the existing content will become publicly viewable as well

💡 Pro Tip for Admins

Private topics are managed through the Topics Page. When making a topic private:

  • You'll be prompted to select a group to gate the topic with
  • You cannot assign a topic to multiple private groups

Have more questions? Reach out in your Common community or visit docs.common.xyz for support.