The images below featured as the Photo of the Month from 2001 – 2006.
Although the Malaysian Nature Society was established in 1940, there is very little documented record of when the MNS Marine SIG first started.
By the time H.Y. Leong (byline: Mnsmarine) joined the Society in 1996, there was already a MNS Marine SIG with a committee to run its programmes. But there was no world wide web presence. At the time, promoting the SIG’s activities only happened through the monthly newsletter published a month and a half in advance and by word of mouth. Even then, there was a newsletter restriction on the number of words one could describe one’s event.
The first website (1999-2001)
In 1999, H.Y. saw the need for a website to help Marine SIG achieve its goals to raise awareness through its activities and at the same time educate the general public about Malaysia’s marine heritage. She bought a thick book (similar to a telephone directory) and started building a website using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) briefly on Atfreeweb.com, and then later on Lycos.com.
The first Marine SIG website was a simple how to get to the Marine Parks of Malaysia to what type of marine flora and fauna could be seen.
Second transformation (2001-2006)
In 2001, Mnsmarine switched to Tripod which was bought over by Lycos because it had a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) feature, with very little HTML programming needed. But from 2001-2006, maintaining and managing the website had to be archived manually, sometimes by writing some html on Tripod.com. The first and second website logged a total of 11,665 page views.
Third makeover (2006-2016)
In 2007, H.Y. switched to Blogger (or Blogspot.com) which allowed blogs to have time-stamped entries and it automatically archived stories by months and years. What a time-saver!
Later, H.Y. embedded a statistics counter and from May 2010-August 2016, the website logged 36,510 page views.
Current website (2016-present)
Since 1999, the MNS Marine SIG website changed its content and design and was hosted by five different platforms – from Atfreeweb to Lycos, Tripod, Blogspot and now WordPress.com in 2016.
This fourth makeover combines two websites – Tripod.com (2001-2006 archives and a wedding website for newlyweds not serving shark’s fin soup) and Blogspot.com. In total, 17 years of posts and pictures voluntarily captured by both MNS and non-MNS members, marking the growth of the MNS Selangor Branch Marine SIG and key marine environmental stories at the time.
H.Y. is donating the website and its management to MNS Marine SIG at the end of September 2016 for this and future generations. Perhaps one day, technology will advance so much that maintaining websites could be done with a wave of one’s hand!
Image photographers: Alan Chong, Gillian Elliott, Lillian Khoo, Kana Kulasingam, Saras Kumar, K.L. Kwang, Effendy Rahaman, Andy Lim, Serina Rahman, Harun Rahman, Kelene Toh, and Susie Watts/WildAid. Click any image to read the full caption.
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Marine Group, Malaysian Nature Society Selangor Branch 