Understanding Community Ranks and Badges

[Jessica_CM]

• What are Community ranks?
• Where can I see someone's rank?
• List of Community ranks
• Earned Community ranks
• How can I rank up?
• Assigned Community ranks
• What are avatar icons?
• What are Community badges?
• List of badges

What are Community ranks?

The Google Cloud Community uses a ranking system that consists of earned ranks and assigned ranks. The earned ranking ladder encourages and recognizes quality contributions to the community, whereas assigned ranks sit outside the earned ranking ladder and are given based on a specific role in the community, such as a Community Manager.

Community members can reach higher earned ranks by contributing to the Community. For example, by creating new topics, receiving kudos ("likes"), or authoring accepted solutions.

Community ranks are one way of showing that you are especially passionate and knowledgeable about Google’s products and not just active in the Community, but also helpful.

Having a high rank can help establish you as a leader, give you more visibility with Googlers, and even open up exclusive opportunities. 

Where can I see someone's rank?

A member's Community rank is shown throughout the Community - on your profile page, as you interact in the forums, and on leaderboards.

List of Community ranks

As mentioned above, the Google Cloud Community's ranking system consists of earned and assigned ranks. 

Earned Community ranks

All Community members start with the "New Member" rank. As you participate in the Community and engage in different activities, you will climb the Community ranks.

It's important to note that ranks are unlocked by completing a combination of activities and accomplishments, including giving and receiving likes, authoring posts and solutions, and engaging in the comments. 

Below, you can see a list of all ranks from lowest to highest and the benefits you can unlock at each rank tier. You’ll also see to the right of each rank name that there’s a progress bar - a “rank icon” - which will grow each time you unlock a new rank. The rank icon will change colors and start again when you achieve a new rank tier (e.g. when you rank up from Bronze 5 to Silver 1, or Gold 5 to Platinum 1, as examples).

Rank	Rank icon	Description and benefits
New Member		Congrats on joining the community! You can now post, subscribe, and engage with thousands of peers, product experts, and Googlers from around the world.
Bronze 1		Nice work making it to Bronze - you’ve unlocked a shiny new Bronze rank icon.  If you haven’t yet, make sure you’re signed up for the Google Cloud Innovators program at no-cost to access 500 credits of labs and learning on Google Cloud Skills Boost for new users. Your Innovator status will also be recognized in the community with an Innovator avatar icon.
Bronze 2
Bronze 3
Bronze 4
Bronze 5
Silver 1		You found the silver lining! Your community contributions have earned you a new Silver rank icon.  As a Silver member, one of your Authored Solutions in the community is eligible for the chance to be featured in the weekly, Overwhelmed Person’s Guide to Google Cloud newsletter.  Keep it up and go for gold!
Silver 2
Silver 3
Silver 4
Silver 5
Gold 1		You’re golden! As a Gold member, you’re eligible to participate in alpha/beta testings on Google Cloud products. We’ll invite you to participate via Private Message in the Community, so make sure you have your Private Messenger notifications enabled.  You’ve also unlocked the ability to post to the community Knowledge Base. Knowledge base contributions not only help provide tips, tricks, and tutorials that benefit the community and demonstrate your expertise, but they can also help accelerate your climb up the community ranks. Submit this form to claim your author permissions and start contributing!
Gold 2
Gold 3
Gold 4
Gold 5
Platinum 1		As a Platinum member, you've unlocked Innovators Plus free for a year. We’ll invite you to claim your Innovators Plus subscription via Private Message in the Community, so make sure you have your Private Messenger notifications enabled. Platinum members will also be featured in a Community Member spotlight blog to showcase your contributions and new community status.
Platinum 2
Platinum 3
Platinum 4
Platinum 5
Leader 1		Congratulations! You’ve achieved the highest community member rank reserved for our most dedicated experts who have demonstrated their product knowledge, problem-solving, and helpfulness through their community contributions.  As a Leader, the Google Cloud Community team will nominate you as a Google Cloud Champion Innovator and you’ll be featured in a Community Member spotlight blog recognizing your new status.
Leader 2
Leader 3
Leader 4
Leader 5

How can I rank up?

We don’t share the exact formulas and activity criteria for each rank. This makes things more exciting and ensures that high ranks are well-deserved and not easily earned by gaming the system.

With that said, we can provide general guidance and tips that will help you climb the ranks and reach new heights in the cloud. And remember, ranks are unlocked by completing a combination of community activities, including giving and receiving likes, authoring posts and solutions, and engaging in the comments. 

• Focus on providing quality, helpful responses to Community member questions
• Remember to give kudos (likes) for helpful responses or posts, and remember to mark a response as an Accepted Solution if it answered your question
• When asking a new question, provide a detailed title and description, including the context and any helpful code snippets or screenshots that will help others understand how to best respond to your question
• Contribute to the Community Knowledge Base with technical best practices and tips and tricks (once you've reached the Gold rank and are eligible to do so)
• Consistency is key! Utilize subscriptions and notifications to be automatically updated when new posts are created about the topics you care about

Assigned Community ranks

Community members with an assigned Community rank sit outside the earned Community ranks structure. Notable assigned ranks that you will see throughout the Community include: 

Staff: Employee of Google (Googler)

Community Manager: Part of the extended Google Cloud Community team, focused on providing a welcoming, helpful, and safe space for members to meet their goals with Google Cloud. Community Managers actively monitor the forums, help ensure Community Guidelines are followed, and help facilitate community conversations, content, and events. 

Google Developer Expert: Part of the Google Developer Experts program, these Community members are passionate professionals with expertise in Google technology who enjoy continuous learning, sharing knowledge, and making an impact on the community.

You'll see that Community Managers and Google Developer Experts also have rank icons to the left of their usernames to emphasize their roles in the Community.

What are avatar icons?

While all Community members have a rank (either earned or assigned), you'll see that some members also have an avatar icon to signify a unique status, role, or achievement in the broader Google Cloud ecosystem.

Community members who are Googlers (assigned rank, "Staff") have an avatar icon, as shown in the image below. This is so all Community members can more quickly and easily recognize who is or who is not a Google employee. 

Other avatar icons you'll see in the Community include Innovators, Innovators Plus, and Champion Innovators. 

• Innovator: Member of the Google Cloud Innovators program.
  
  Everyone is welcome to become an Innovator at no cost - developers, students, cloud practitioners... any Google Cloud user. Learn how to sign up by following the steps on the Innovators website here. As an Innovator, you'll receive the latest Google Cloud news direct to your inbox, be invited to hear from Google Cloud executives and Developer Advocates, and receive 500 credits of Skills Boost credits for new users.
   
• Innovators Plus: Innovators Plus subscriber.
  
  The Innovators Plus subscription offers over $1,500 in developer benefits for only $299. Access the entire catalog of Google Cloud Skills Boost on-demand training, up to $1000 Google Cloud credits, a certification voucher, special access to Google Cloud experts and execs, live learning events, and more (subject to eligibility limitations).
  
  
• Champion Innovator: Member of the Champion Innovators program. 
  
  Champion Innovators are a global network of more than 500 professionals, nominated by Googlers, who are technical experts in Google Cloud products and services. Each Champion specializes in one of nine different technical categories. These are trustworthy folks you can lean on for answers to your questions or to learn best practices. Champion Innovators have the exclusive opportunity to publish articles to our community knowledge base and to speak on community events. 

What are Community badges?

Badges recognize you for your contributions and accomplishments in the Community (e.g. posting, commenting, authoring solutions, receiving and giving likes) without being tied to a rank.

Badges are unlocked by completing a certain amount of activities, whereas ranks are tied to completing a combination of activities and accomplishments. 

To view the badges you've earned, click "My profile" from the drop-down by your avatar on the top right of the Community. 

On your profile page, you can see a high-level overview of badges you've earned, including the most recent. Click "View all badges"  to see all the badges you've earned.

When you view all badges, you'll also see badges with reduced opacity to indicate badges you haven't unlocked yet. 

You can also see other Community members’ badges from their profile pages. 

List of badges

As you participate in the Community and reach activity milestones, you'll unlock earned badges, including authored solutions, posts, comments (replies), ideas, likes received, and likes given.

Here’s an overview of the badges available in the Google Cloud Community today.

Badge Image	Title	Description
	Authored Solution	Your reply/post was accepted as a solution in the Community forums.
	Authored Posts	You published a new post in the Community.
	Comments Posted	You published a comment (reply) to a Community post.
	Likes Received	You received a "like" (kudos) on your Community post or comment.
	Likes Given	You gave a “like” (kudos) to another Community member’s post or comment.
	Ideas Submitted	You published an idea to the Features Idea area of the Community (currently only applicable for the Google Workspace and AppSheet Communities)