When it comes to designing a web site, every decision is a trade-off. There is no perfect answer. Each solution has pros and cons.
So, with that in mind, let me explain the decision C2 made with regards to allowing strategies to go “private,” and the reasons for it.
Basically, we want strategy developers to feel in control of how their strategy, and their intellectual property generally, is presented on C2.
If Trade Leaders don’t want to present a strategy publicly on C2, then we won’t force them to. Doing otherwise would discourage good strategy creators from joining us in the first place. Trade Leaders considering whether to come to C2 will think to themselves: “Sure my strategy is doing okay now. And I’d like to show it on C2. But once I join C2, I can never change my mind nor remove my track record from public scrutiny.” This fear will prevent good strategies from joining C2.
Let’s look at it from a subscriber’s point of view. You see a strategy has been made “private.” You can reasonably assume that is because the strategy is not performing as well as the Trade Leader would like. This fact is abundantly clear. What more, really, do you need to know? More important, once a strategy is private, you can no longer subscribe to it, in any case, so there is nothing further you can do. You can assume the reason why a strategy was made private was that its performance was not what the Trade Leader had hoped.
I think this is the right way to run the site. Trade Leaders do not have to commit irrevocably, by signing away their first-born child, to the requirement that their strategy remain perpetually visible to the public, no matter what. If they want the freedom to remove their work-in-progress from public view, we let them. That’s their right. No subscriber will be misled or fooled by this. They won’t be able to subscribe when a strategy is private anyway.
Now, if the Trade Leader improves things and wants to make his strategy public again, then fine. He can do so. Which means he can again solicit new subscribers. But remember: now that the strategy is public, the full track record will be visible. Even that bad period when the strategy was temporarily private will be visible. If the strategy went through a drawdown, that drawdown (and indeed all history) will once again be visible. Subscribers will be able to judge for themselves that period in the track record.
What it boils down to is this: If you want to ask for subscribers, you must make your entire track record visible. If you no longer want to ask for subscribers, you can remove your work from public view. This policy is designed to allow Trade Leaders feel comfortable about joining C2, since the decision is not one that must be made irrevocably.
This policy isn’t underhanded, or a way to enable devious behavior. There’s nothing devious about any of this. It’s simple and above-board: If you are a Trade Leader, you get to choose whether or not to show your work to the public. If you choose not to show your work, then fine — but you won’t be able to solicit customers on the platform.
This seems to me a fair, balanced policy. Of course reasonable people can disagree, and no policy is set in stone, never to change, but this is the current state of things, and the reasons behind the policy.
