Introduction
For Google Cloud developers, the community forum has long been a vital resource - from troubleshooting code to exchanging best practices. However, as technology evolves and developer needs grow more complex, the expectations for community platforms rise as well. In this comparison, we’ll explore how the existing Google Cloud Community forum stacks up and how a potential new Google Developer Program forums could elevate collaboration and learning for everyone involved.
Comparison
The following graphic illustrates the critical distinctions between the existing Google Cloud Community forum and the envisioned Google Developer Program forums.
I’ve divided this comparison into 12 key areas to make it easier to analyze. These areas, in my opinion, represent the most crucial and visible changes. Let’s go over a few of them in more detail - the rest should be self-explanatory.
Login method
This refers to how users access services like the Google Developer Program forum and related tools. Currently, participation in the Google Cloud Community forum requires creating a separate account — which isn’t ideal, especially considering how many accounts we all juggle these days. With the new forum, that’s changing. Instead of yet another login, users will sign in using their existing Google Developer Program (GDP) profile (or create new one if doesn’t exist ) which will connect them directly to the forum. This isn’t just a minor improvement; it’s a foundational move toward a more unified and streamlined Google developer ecosystem. And it’s for everyone. To be clear, when we say “developer,” we’re referring to the entire community of people who build with Google technologies — including engineers, product managers, data scientists, IT admins, operators, architects, students, and even hobbyists. If you build on or with Google platforms, the Google Developer Program is built for you.
How to register and log in to Google Developer Program forums
Communities
At the heart of both forums lies the concept of communities. These serve as primary organizers, helping group related topics together and keeping the forum clean and easy to navigate. In the previous forum, there were six main communities:
- Google Cloud
- Google Workspace
- AppSheet
- Looker & LookerStudio
- Google Cloud Security Community
- Learnign & Certification Hub
With the new forum, one community will be removed and second one will get (Google Cloud Security Community) a dedicated URL, allowing it to grow its own community independently. This separation gives it room to evolve with a more focused identity and audience.
As a result, the new forum will include the following communities:
- Google Cloud
- Google Workspace Developers
- AppSheet
- Looker & LookerStudio
Official info about Google Cloud Security Community separation:
Part 1 and Part 2
Trust level
“In community, trust grows with contribution — the more you give, the more you’re trusted.”
Old forum relied on community ranks. In short, the Google Cloud Community useda 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.
However, new forum provides totally different approach. Google Developers Program forums offers five user trust levels. Your current trust level is visible on your user page, and a summary of all trust levels within your community is presented on your dashboard.
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Basic / First level on forum : Achievable, when sticking around and reading a few topics to learn what our community is about. New user restrictions have been lifted; you’ve been granted all essential community abilities, such as personal messaging, flagging, wiki editing, and the ability to post multiple images and links.
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Member / Second level on forum: Achievable, when participating over a period of weeks to truly join our community. You can now send invitations from your user page or individual topics, create group personal messages, and have more likes per day.
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Regular / Third level on forum: Achievable when being a regular part of our community over a period of months. You’re now one of the most active readers, and a reliable contributor that makes our community great. You can now recategorize and rename topics, take advantage of more powerful spam flags, and you’ll also get lots more likes per day.
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Leader / Fourth level on forum: Achievable, when you are selected by staff, and you set a positive example for the rest of the community in your actions and words here. You have the ability to edit all posts, take common topic moderator actions such as pin, close, unlist, archive, split, and merge.
Global Leaderboards
Just like the previous forum, the new one also includes scoreboard functionality. However, unlike before, the leaderboard does not include category-specific breakdowns — it only displays scores within selected timeframes (e.g., weekly, monthly, all-time). Additionally, such leaderboard is hidden, so to reachout this you have to go to your profile → summary → expand your summary and click “cheers”.
Direct Messages
If you not aware, direct message (DM) is a private communication sent to a specific individual or a group of individuals on a social media platform or other messaging service. Unlike public posts, only the sender and recipients can view the content of a direct message. Within old forum, we had option to send direct messages, regardless of the trust level ( except totally newly created accounts. Fot them, there was incubation time, so to say).
In the new Google Developer Program forum, direct messaging is no longer available to regular users — regardless of trust level. The only users with the ability to send DMs are Googlers.
User Groups
This is a completely new feature. The previous Google Cloud Community did not offer any kind of user grouping functionality. In contrast, the Google Developer Program forums introduce the concept of User Groups.
By joining a group, you can contribute to and engage with specific focus areas within the forum. It’s a great way to connect with others who share your interests, collaborate more effectively, and stay updated on topics that matter to you.
Profile Macros
Macros are a great way to speed up the response process, if you know that there are similar questions that you come across a lot. Old forum provided such feature by default. You was able to create nine macros in total, supported with HTML syntax. Unfortunately, the new forum lacks this functionality.
Text toolbar
The new forum brings some welcome improvements. Previously, we had to work with a somewhat clunky editor that would occasionally hang at random, making posting a bit frustrating at times.
Now, the upgraded text editor feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s more advanced, responsive, and overall much more pleasant to use. This should significantly improve the experience of writing and formatting posts — especially for those who contribute regularly. New editor provides following features:
- Editor Options: Switch between new rich editor text and standard Markdown editor
- Bold: Make font bold
- Italics: Make font italized
- Links: Insert hyperlinks.
- Blockquote: Add content in blockquote format
- Images: You can add images from your device, by copy/pasting, or uploading images to your post.
- Emojis (Emoticons): Select from 10 categories to quickly express your feelings without having to use words
- Quote whole post
- Preformatted text
- Bulleted List: Add a bulleted list
- Numbered List: Add a numbered list
- Insert Table: Insert a table. Add contents to the table before clicking Build Table
- Hide Details: Highlight text to hide. Click hide details and text will now appear in as a summary
- Insert date/time: Add a date and time of an event and the recurrence.
- Blur Spoiler: Highlight the text that needs to be blurred. Users will need to click on the text to view it.
- AI: AI can be used to translate to English (US), proofread, generate Markdown tables and Smart dates.
source: https://discuss.google.dev/t/tips-and-tricks-to-make-the-most-of-the-google-developer-program-forums/154
AI
Last but not least. AI. I know, that these days, all of us used AI at least once. New forum brings Gemini on board, AI powered features that will create a smoother experience, help drive more engaging conversations and make life simple for users at the forum. Some of the new features include:
- AI Helper — Having trouble creating topic titles, classification or even its content? Let Gemini help you find your way!
- AI Search — Let Gemini help you quickly find the topics and answers you’re looking for with the AI semantic search feature.
- AI Related Topics — You may want to get a better understanding of a certain idea or situation you are facing. Related topics powered by AI will help you quickly find past, or present, experiences someone else has had.
- AI Summaries — Use Gemini to summarize the topic interactions and quickly understand what has been discussed
Summary
As we can see, Google has flipped the table and introduced a genuinely interesting new platform. Of course, this is just the beginning — and like any community, the forum will continue to evolve over time. Whether you’re a new member or a seasoned forum veteran, there’s no doubt that these new communities will bring significant value to your developer journey.