💬 We want to hear from you! Community ranks and recognition feedback

[Lauren_vdv]

Hi everyone!

We’re planning to refresh the Community rank structure, but before moving forward, we wanted to make sure we heard from you. This is after all, your Community so we want to prioritize your voice and perspective with any changes that are made. 

Ranks today

Today, Community ranks consist of both earned and assigned ranks. The earned ranks are based on activity and contributions to the Community, whereas assigned ranks live outside the earned rank structure and are based on a certain role or set of permissions the member holds, such as “Community Manager,” “Staff,” or “Google Developer Expert.” 

Ranks are visible throughout the Community, particularly on your profile page and when you engage in the Community with posts, comments, and events. 

Earned ranks are currently as follows, beginning with “New Member” and progressing to “Participant V.”  

• New Member
• Community Visitor
• Observer
• Explorer
• Participant I
• Participant II
• Participant III
• Participant IV
• Participant V

Badges work in parallel with ranks and are currently awarded based on incremental achievements in the Community, including number of posts, accepted solutions, ideas, comments, and likes received. Badges earned are visible from each member’s profile page.

Reasons for change

Community ranks and badges can help serve a number of purposes, including:

• Encourages and rewards quality contributions

• Indicates level of engagement and expertise, which can help others know how to best respond and communicate with each other

• Helps establish credibility and visibility as a leader

• Brings an element of gamification that helps make Community fun!

We believe our current rank structure can be improved to better meet each of the purposes above. We have some ideas on how to do this, but we want to hear from you… 

What do you think?

Please share your thoughts on one or a few of the questions below. This will be tremendously helpful in ensuring any changes we make are aligned to your wants and needs. 

Of course, free form responses that don’t necessarily relate to a specific question are welcome as well! 

• What do you like or what do you think could be improved about our existing Community ranks and recognition program (i.e. ranks, badges, gamification)?

• What would help motivate you to participate in community activities that help uplevel your rank? (e.g. extrinsic motivators like swag, and/or intrinsic motivators like being helpful and receiving thanks and recognition, or a combination of both)

• If you were to come up with your own rank names for the Google Cloud Community, what would they be? (e.g. member, visitor, contributor, leader, legend, etc.)

• Are there other rank/badge programs you’ve seen or been a part of? What are they and what do you like or dislike about them? 

• Would you be interested in participating in activities such as speaking at a community event, joining a Q&A panel, authoring a community blog, being featured in a member spotlight, etc.?