Hello all, the last few days have been very busy for me, and at this point I think that I'll be able to get back to ikolam work only on Saturday. Sorry for the delay in opening the garden. I hope you'll understand. Thank you so much.
Earth Day is now observed on April 22, in all the countries on Earth. I'm sure many of us have taken a step, inspired to make a difference, however small it may be. Planting seeds and plants has been on our minds for a while now, since it is springtime where we live. And that's exactly what we've done - planted Marigolds, Dusty Miller, and some daisies too. Our simple acts for Earth day.
Okay now, I guess it is my turn to vent out my restlessness! I just talked to our blue beauties, a while ago, and took my turn to say "hello" to most of the assembled members. And now, I can't help talking to myself; "What the hell am I doing here!?" 
Why am I so unlucky, always? Stupid me, stupid life...BOO HOO HOOOO 
(c'mon brain, just shut the hell up and go to bed).
One of the things that I do ceremoniously, as part of publishing the submitted rangolis, is to verify the work to make sure that it is original work and not plagiarized. This actually takes up quite a bit of my time too and is needed to maintain the quality of the site.
Sometimes, there isn’t much we can do about giving credit to the designs we make that are inspired by store-bought series of kolam books or note-books passed on down the familial line. Both the former and the latter fall under the “unknown author” category. But, when we consider the freehand kolams/rangolis originally designed by other people, we can certainly give credit to them by mentioning the name of the person and/or website. Also, it might be better to ask for permission prior to integrating another person’s original work into our works.
According to most people experienced with the cyberworld, plagiarism entails not only the act of copying but also the presentation of another’s ideas as one’s own. There have been cases of plagiarism here at iKolam over the years. Members have posted plagiarized images from other sites here, and iKolam members have plagiarized our members’ images and posted them elsewhere too. At iKolam, we always give the benefit of the doubt, and send a message to the owner whom we suspect has committed plagiarism. And we have about 70% success rate in making somebody realize and fix the mistakes. We have also not denied access to members to the site, who have plagiarized in any way till date.
I have provided two examples of work which are considered plagiarized. Image 1 is completely hand drawn by me, but the idea belongs to another ikolam member and I have not mentioned source of the idea, thus giving the impression that this is my original work. Image 2 is the direct copy of the original file that belongs to some body else.
When you mouse over the thumbnails on the front page, you'll see the city names of the kolams too. We were excited to realize that, each entry comes from a different place (ofcourse we all knew that), and couldn't help thinking about this idea.
Let us know if you don't want us to reveal your city.
I wanted to let you all know that, going forward, I would be spending my time on ikolam publishing rangolis, managing/moderating, and answering to emails/issues etc. I like the way our long time members support each other by commenting on each other's rangolis. Due to time constraints, I may not be commenting as much on our established member's submissions. At the same time, I feel like I owe the same support/encouragement to our new members, who may not be completely aware of how our system works.
ikolam is finding it hard to keep up with some of its highly enthusiatic members, whose rangolis run in double-digits, in the rangoli queue. In order to maintain some form of a balance in publishing all of our members' works, we would like to request the following busy bees to kindly postpone uploading more files until further notice. I can't tell you how uncomfortable this makes me feel. Please understand that, I'm posting such a request after having to deal with a few curt emails. 
Not a day goes by without working with you Photoshop!
Thank you Mr.Thomas Knoll.
Following are considered the maximum human survival threshold:
3 minutes without air/oxygen
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
What is your threshold for surviving without rangolis?
