Understanding Community Ranks and Badges

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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 quality contributions, whereas assigned ranks, provide special permissions, such as administrative access.

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. You'll receive notifications when you earn a new rank, including via email.

Community ranks are one way of showing that you are especially passionate 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.

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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. Below, you can see a list of all ranks from highest to lowest.

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

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.

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)

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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

Innovators in GCC avatar icons.png

  • 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, and receiving 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. 

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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.

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

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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, and likes received. 

There are also badges that are assigned manually, including the Founder badge, which represents the earliest members of the Community who helped us shape it before launch. 

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

Badge Image

Title

Description

Solutions1.gif

Authored Solution

Your reply/post was accepted as a solution in the Community forums. 

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Authored Posts

You published a new post in the Community. 

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Comments Posted

You published a comment (reply) to a Community post.

Likes1 (1).gif

Likes Received

You received a "like" (kudos) on your Community post or comment. 

Ideas1 (1).gif

Ideas Submitted

You published an idea to the Features Idea area of the Community (currently only applicable for the Google Workspace and AppSheet Communities)

Founder (1).png

Founder

This badge represents the earliest members of the Community, who helped us shape it, with their feedback, starting even before the beta launch. 

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Last update:
‎08-29-2023 06:27 AM
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