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For a while now, Google has supported their various Cloud Platform services on Stack Overflow, both in terms of directing developers to the site and in actually answering questions about using these services.

Apparently, they've noticed that some folks are asking questions on these services here, on Server Fault, as well - they've contacted us about adding this site as an additional resource for folks with questions that are more appropriate for this community.

Google's developer support has generally been pretty good - they're not particularly prone to dumping their garbage on us. But they raised a question about tagging, so I took some time to review the situation here:

I have decidedly mixed feelings about adding a google-cloud-platform tag. It seems overly-broad to me; better to have tags for specific services. However, there may be some administrative functions that are common to the platform as a whole, and y'all already have the even more broad tag which may be where such questions are ending up now. FWIW, our Google contact's concern is that having separate tags is going to be less important for folks in a support/administration role (you folks) than it is for programmers - and thus forcing askers to pick a specific product may be splitting hairs.

Given this is clearly outside my area of expertise, I'm bringing the question to you: should there be a google-cloud-platform tag here, and what, if any, should its purpose be defined as?

Update: based on the responses here, I've tried to follow the model of the existing tag, and added to the questions already tagged with the more specific tags listed above.

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    We have a tag for AWS, so this proposed tag does have precedent.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 21:19
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    It sounds like it's on-topic to me.
    – Katherine Villyard
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 23:10
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    I for one welcome our new Google Overlords. Regardless, creating a tag and seeing how it evolves can do no real harm (other than giving HopelessN00b more work if it ends up needing cleanup). If the questions are coming I'm sure the usage will follow. Even if it gets used for a different purpose than originally defined, that just means we should adjust the definition.
    – Reaces
    Commented Feb 12, 2015 at 13:39
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    Dude can you quit spamming the front page with migrations ! We generally request that people who are going to push loads of stuff onto the front page rate limit themselves so as to not push new questions out of site. I think we'd be grateful if you did the same.
    – user9517
    Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 17:36
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    @Iain Alternatively, the "tag-bitch" mod here is pretty good at covertly retagging and retagging off-hours so the efforts most fly under the radar. Shog could ask him to do it. I hear he takes payment in beer, Scotch and/or Irish whiskey.
    – HopelessN00b Mod
    Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 17:49
  • Dumping 50 questions, some of which are questionably tagged, over to SF has now made me ignore that tag. Well done.
    – Matthew Ife
    Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 17:51
  • @HopelessN00b I guess that you also check if the tags good or not too rather than blindly retagging.
    – user9517
    Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 17:53
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    None of these are migrated, @Iain - just retagged. And they could use a bit of review from folks who have a better idea of what they're doing here. I'll let Community bump a pile of questions in a bit to restore some variety to the homepage, but if you could take a few minutes to look over what's there now I think it could be beneficial.
    – Shog9
    Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 17:56

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We have and , so would certainly seem to belong, as they are the other big public cloud option. Plus, we do already have the more specific tags about specific parts of their cloud.

As to its purpose, I'd say it should be used like the AWS and Azure tags. To tag questions about sysadmin-y things specific to Google's cloud platform, the same way the Azure and AWS tags are [supposed to be] used.

However Google support wants to handle that is their business. If they want to steer sysadmin-y questions about their cloud our way, and answer them, I can't say I have any real feelings either way. On the one hand, I dislike the site being used as a substitute for actual product support, but on the other, the big public cloud providers are relevant to systems administration in today's world.

That said, if a bunch of window-licking morons ask moronic, window-licky questions about Google's cloud, they'll get the same reception that all the other crappy questions get around here - lots of downvotes and/or closed, regardless of whether or not that hurts people's feelings or makes them think of us as mean and unwelcoming. (The off-topic close reason that means approximately "you didn't give us enough information" seems like a relevant thing to mention at this point.)

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    cdn3.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/gg/up/…
    – Katherine Villyard
    Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 22:59
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    Yeah, not overly worried about dumping - as I said, they've been pretty good about treating Stack Overflow as a way of serving users who already want to ask there, and I expect to see the same from SF.
    – Shog9
    Commented Feb 12, 2015 at 1:13

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