Spring Clean

 I'm kind of looking forward to the great OSGrid asset reset. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work going back over the 13 and a half years of precious things and junk. Hold on though... scanning through Inventory it quickly becomes clear that although there are 18,000 items in there, maybe half of that is duplicates / slightly modified versions of the same thing. Eliminate those, and the things worth keeping probably boil down to ten maybe 20 percent of what's left. Decluttering - yes please! 

By the way, if you know anyone who only occasionally shows up in OSGrid, or who doesn't follow the news much, then be a friend, and remind them that the OSGrid Reset will take place around March 21 - so now's the time to act!

This is definitely the moment to make sure any scripts you care about, any creations, anything that you have that's unique to your OSGrid avatar is in a safe place.
A big shout out to all the other grid owners who are helping out with the situation and offering places for people to go/put their stuff!
Some of us view this as a great opportunity for some spring cleaning. Yes, it involves going through your stuff and moving what you want to keep to the account of an alt on another grid. Alternatively you may save stuff by rezzing objects on a sim, and then getting an .oar made of the whole thing - either doing it yourself if you know how, or asking your sim provider to make the .oar (a backup copy of a sim). If instead you want to keep everything, or have so much stuff it would take you months to sort through it all, then you'll need an .iar (a backup copy of your inventory). 

How to do that? Well, first read with care the page on the above mentioned OSGrid website. 

For the non geek you need to consult whoever rents you your sim or parcel, or get hold of OSGrid admin. If you run your own regions and are into the backend stuff, you will likely already know how to save .oars and .iars (this page by Roland Francis posted in 2023 may help as a reminder) but either way, if you have doubts or questions, join the OSGrid Discord server, where there is a dedicated channel just for questions about backups. 

The battle of the assets is fairly brutal -  this gif is from Nephtys,
Ange and Nani's 2016 Halloween build, safely stored away as an .oar by Ange

Bear in mind this though, if you've been in OSgrid a long time, your inventory contains loads of things (usually the older stuff) that's already lost, and making an .iar is not going to magically force those assets to return. 

In what way?

Like most people, I've got a lot of items of sentimental value - LMs, gifts, photos, and Notecards. They mostly relate to people and places no longer around, or significant events. Take for example the going-away party for Justin CC, which included a greetings card 'signed' by about 90 partygoers, back in 2015. 

Justin's party back in 2015. 

The sad truth is, while the names of the assets connected with that event are still listed in my Inventory, the actual things, when I try to rez or open them, are all blank or 'Loading' or 'Not Found'. OSGrid is in a serious situation, and some sentimental picture seems a small matter compared with the important job of getting the grid into shape.

Only 18k of assets I hear you say? Lightweight! Ange Menges mentioned yesterday that it will take him 2 days to create an .iar of his creative partner's inventory. But we have 6 weeks until the reset, so there's time to do these necessary jobs.

It seems unlikely that there are many people in opensim who only have an OSGrid account (that would be taking grid loyalty to a bit of a ridiculous level -  OSGrid has always had the status of a test grid) so most people have always known they should spread the risk and save stuff on multiple grids.

Yes, this does involve work on the part of everyone, and some resentment and irritation is bound to be felt by some, but nothing worthwhile is easy, so why not view it as an opportunity instead of a tragedy.

One of the great things about opensim is that most of the content is free. This means that if an asset slips out of your fingers you can always get another copy, or ask around until you find someone who has what you need, without losing money, or having all that financial anxiety that you'd have in the real world.

The OSGrid admins have so much on their plate at present, so anyone who makes a smug, mean, denigrating, or pointlessly angry comment about this situation is really putting the Ass in Assets. Let's support this massive change, and look forward to the improvements it is set to bring to OSGrid.