5 ms·

I don't really understand this sentiment, here's how my drive looks: https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png does your drive look sign

I don't really understand this sentiment, here's how my drive looks: https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png does your drive look significantly different from this?

alanbernstein 6y ago
I have the same problem, but I suspect the true cause is sharing a folder structure with other people, without defining/enforcing any conventions on organization.
txcwpalpha 6y ago
Mine does. I agree wholeheartedly with the parent commenter. My personal G Drive looks similar to yours. It looks like your Drive is mostly used by you, and not many (if any) other collaborators. The problem is that my work G Drive is an utter clusterfuck because of the numerous different ways that documents can be shared between people/teams. There are shared folders, shared drives, individually shared documents, and probably more. And each one of them shows up in a completely different place than the others. If you're working with one specific team, you can likely get that entire team to conform to one way of doing things (everyone puts documents in this shared folder). But once you start involving 10s/100s of teams, thousands of individuals, etc... some teams use "Shared drives" (which show up on the left panel under "Shared drives"), some teams use shared folders (which show up in your folders list), some teams use individually shared documents (which show up in any number of random places, with the only reliable way of getting back to it is to find the email where they shared it with you). Some teams use shared drives internally within their team, but because they don't want to share the entire drive with an outside collaborator, they will share only a specific folder/file. The entire sharing mechanism becomes a mess and impossible to track and keep organized. G drive is nice in many aspects, but the sharing is one in which IMO it allows far too much flexibility. The nice thing about file systems of yesteryear like Sharepoint (ugh, ew) is that they at least said "this is the folder tree. use it, because you don't have any choice" which at least encouraged some modicum of structure. G Drive instead says "here's a sandbox, do what you want" which sounds nice in theory, but in practical use is a mess when you have 1000+ people building their own personal sandcastle.
- MperorM 6y ago
  That does sound awful! Thankfully we use Box and regular office at my workplace, so I have not had to experience that side of Drive. Would it be fair to say Drive is very well suited for small organisations, but has trouble scaling?
  - txcwpalpha 6y ago
    I think it's great for small teams and small organizations who will likely naturally come to a standardized way of doing things. I think it also can be great for larger organizations as long as that organization has a decent way to encourage (and ideally enforce) a standard way of organizing file shares. It's definitely a challenge once you start losing that structure, though.
    - charwalker 6y ago
      Yeah, I think that if there are strong norms or rules on organization and structure then it can work really well for any size team. But as soon as 1 person or project starts to deviate (no matter how good the intentions) it can quickly drop into a mess like any free for all file share. My team at work technically owns this one file server that is open to most of the company and has been an easy duping ground. Like, project X needs a share, stick it on [Server] vs the effort to set up a new share on an appropriate server (there are many others including department specific). We have a project slated for late this year or early next to audit the file server and shares then permission to begin migrating shares my team doesn't own to other servers. I'm so ready for that.
milesskorpen 6y ago
Sure, I've got the same buttons ... but I've got >150,000 files in my Drive managed by >2,000 colleagues assembled over 6+ years, including files inherited from colleagues/reports who have left with their own approaches to file management, which turns it all into a massive disaster.

I don't really understand this sentiment, here's how my drive looks: https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png https://i.imgur.com/UUUboTd.png does your drive look significantly different from this?

alanbernstein 6y ago

I have the same problem, but I suspect the true cause is sharing a folder structure with other people, without defining/enforcing any conventions on organization.

txcwpalpha 6y ago

Mine does. I agree wholeheartedly with the parent commenter. My personal G Drive looks similar to yours. It looks like your Drive is mostly used by you, and not many (if any) other collaborators. The problem is that my work G Drive is an utter clusterfuck because of the numerous different ways that documents can be shared between people/teams. There are shared folders, shared drives, individually shared documents, and probably more. And each one of them shows up in a completely different place than the others. If you're working with one specific team, you can likely get that entire team to conform to one way of doing things (everyone puts documents in this shared folder). But once you start involving 10s/100s of teams, thousands of individuals, etc... some teams use "Shared drives" (which show up on the left panel under "Shared drives"), some teams use shared folders (which show up in your folders list), some teams use individually shared documents (which show up in any number of random places, with the only reliable way of getting back to it is to find the email where they shared it with you). Some teams use shared drives internally within their team, but because they don't want to share the entire drive with an outside collaborator, they will share only a specific folder/file. The entire sharing mechanism becomes a mess and impossible to track and keep organized. G drive is nice in many aspects, but the sharing is one in which IMO it allows far too much flexibility. The nice thing about file systems of yesteryear like Sharepoint (ugh, ew) is that they at least said "this is the folder tree. use it, because you don't have any choice" which at least encouraged some modicum of structure. G Drive instead says "here's a sandbox, do what you want" which sounds nice in theory, but in practical use is a mess when you have 1000+ people building their own personal sandcastle.

MperorM 6y ago
That does sound awful! Thankfully we use Box and regular office at my workplace, so I have not had to experience that side of Drive. Would it be fair to say Drive is very well suited for small organisations, but has trouble scaling?
- txcwpalpha 6y ago
  I think it's great for small teams and small organizations who will likely naturally come to a standardized way of doing things. I think it also can be great for larger organizations as long as that organization has a decent way to encourage (and ideally enforce) a standard way of organizing file shares. It's definitely a challenge once you start losing that structure, though.
  - charwalker 6y ago
    Yeah, I think that if there are strong norms or rules on organization and structure then it can work really well for any size team. But as soon as 1 person or project starts to deviate (no matter how good the intentions) it can quickly drop into a mess like any free for all file share. My team at work technically owns this one file server that is open to most of the company and has been an easy duping ground. Like, project X needs a share, stick it on [Server] vs the effort to set up a new share on an appropriate server (there are many others including department specific). We have a project slated for late this year or early next to audit the file server and shares then permission to begin migrating shares my team doesn't own to other servers. I'm so ready for that.

milesskorpen 6y ago

Sure, I've got the same buttons ... but I've got >150,000 files in my Drive managed by >2,000 colleagues assembled over 6+ years, including files inherited from colleagues/reports who have left with their own approaches to file management, which turns it all into a massive disaster.