International ponies are basically mainstream ponies. The problem is people think only of ponies sold in the US as being mainstream, when actually that's not the case. I think people may have different interpretations of this but for me 'mainstream' is anything produced directly by Hasbro and sold in stores (or in North America, via Mail Order) between 1982 and 1995.

Additional to that I think roughly being made in Hong Kong or China is a good rule of thumb for mainstream, rather than where it was sold. Mountain Boys are mainstream because they are made in Hong Kong. There are also a few Thai Mountain Boys, they would be Nirvana. If that makes sense?

There are a few exceptions, like the fancy pants babies made in Thailand are mainstream for the US release, thus not Nirvana.

The big problem comes working out what to do with Italian, Spanish/NC and French ponies sold in European countries as they were basically mainstream there...

You mentioned Gypsy, too

Gypsy was sold in the UK, probably Hungary, and maybe a couple of other places, but not widely across Europe. I would consider her mainstream because she was on sale in stores like any other pony in 1986, just not available in the US.

Versions of Gypsy's set were sold across Europe but most of them included Earth ponies only, Gypsy and Honeycomb's release was more limited in comparison. But I would still consider them mainstream because they were promoted and sold through the same catalogues and advertising as the first set of Twinkle Eye Ponies and flutters, both of which are sets widely available in other countries.

Really though, if you want to write a list, you need basically to know what sets ponies were in and what year they were sold. You don't need to try and separate out exactly where they were sold unless you really want to - it's a collector's list rather than an ID guide, right?

So Gypsy and her set (Honeycomb, Hopscotch, Snowflake, straight haired Cherries Jubilee, Magenta tulip Posey) were sold in 1986. You would just include them under 1986.

And then on to the next set

With respect to International. The way the term is used online means "not in the US". But for those of us who live outside the US, our ponies weren't all the same and thus to us ponies sold in the US but not here are 'international' ponies. I'd honestly avoid the term altogether as it's not really useful.

Just stick to mainstream (ie sold in stores, predominately HK and China), maybe Mail Order as a separate category within Mainstream, and then Nirvana as its own category. And yes, under calendar years rather than "Year 1" etc.

Thanks cola I'm glad it's being understood that I'm really just trying to iron out any risk of issues and misinformation.

Back when pony info was pretty new, I had quite a few variants (we didn't call them Nirvana then) included on my site, but I really didn't know a lot about them and as soon as people with more valid information started appearing, I took them down, because I didn't want to be telling the story incorrectly.

Starflash, the 'years' system 'year 1, year 2, year 3' etc was invented by Dream Valley back when the only pony information available was from the US. It doesn't work for international ponies and every site or resource that uses it ends up getting things wrong. Wiki and MLPMerch already disagree on what to call 1993 and 1994, or how they split up, but even in the US, Hasbro released ponies in catalogue years. It's true that they spread the distribution through the year (there is one US insert that details that very helpfully in fact) but the catalogues to stores are all done by calendar year. I've been trying for a long time to get people to let go of Dream Valley's structure, because it's the biggest reason things online are wrong.

DV is actually the reason a lot of misinformation began, because there were incorrect details on the site for years that did not get removed quickly enough. We've been trying to counteract that ever since.

This is why I talk about calendar year.

I think for Nirvana, by country makes sense. For everything more 'mainstream', it doesn't. The tricky part is working out where mainstream ends and Nirvana begins. It's why I wouldn't include Nachtlicht and Regentropfen in a Nirvana list now, because in reality they were mainstream Made in Hong Kong rainbow ponies, from a set of six, sold in 1988 in Germany, Austria and quite probably Switzerland as well. They were identified as Nirvana by a community that at the time lacked many voices from German speaking countries, but that's not the case anymore, so I think it's ok to update them to mainstream - Europe (German speaking) and just include them in 1988 with all the other 1988 sets.

At least, that is what I am doing with my website revamp. I want to see the regular store sold HK and China versions of ponies at least put into a mainstream release irrespective of whether they were sold in the US. So instead of having to look for an international section, the Mountain Boys are just included in 1987 with the third set of So Softs and second set flutters.

On the question about the year, it may well be the mould year based on the hoof date, but I genuinely don't know with Argentinian ponies. I know that not all pony cards in the mainstream are dated correct to that pony's release, but I also know some Nirvana cards are correctly dated...

This is just my personal twitch, but I would separate out Nirvana ponies made under licence (like Top Toys, Estrela, Funskool etc) from Nirvana ponies made by Hasbro (Italian, Spanish/NC, French etc). The second lot are borderline mainstream as they were standard release in a lot of places, whereas the under licence ponies were generally only in the country that licensed them. There is a difference, but one of the main reasons I got out of variants was knowing how and where to draw that line.

I worked yesterday and today, but since Thanksgiving isn't a thing here I can't really complain about it

My complaint is that December is coming too quickly and my brain has no time for organising anything.

At least I didn't get stranded by the bus today. Unlike on monday -.-.

So, some things that jumped out at me.

International and Nirvana ponies are not the same thing. The Wiki is the best of the mainstream sites for G1, but it is still very inaccurate. All the mainstream sites do is cram the ponies not sold in the US into the US timeline or into separate sections all lumped together. This is not actually international pony information - this is US pony information with additional bits. If your source material is Wiki/Strawberry Reef/MLPMerch then you will just be adding to the problem of misinformation.

...As someone who's spent 20+ years working on UK and European pony information, I still spend way too much of my time debunking myths spread by the mainstream sites and by well-meaning collectors who don't have access to original source material about ponies outside the US.

Overlapping international and Nirvana is also massively problematic.

Most of the initiatives to write about international MLP I've seen so far are really written about US and Non-US ponies for a US collecting audience, not actually about international pony releases, nor really inclusive for pony collectors not in the US.

Please don't take this personally as it is not personal in the least - I would say the same thing to anyone who raised the idea you did. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to try and fix international pony information already. Maybe when that's complete, a list might be useful - but let's fix the information first.

If you do decide to go ahead with your list in some form, however, 70% of the ponies in the US run were sold in the UK, and all of the ponies the US had were sold in at least one other country. Separating ponies out because they were sold in the US forces international collectors to look in multiple places to find ponies they might have bought on the same day in their home town, rather than understanding that most ponies are not US ponies at all. I personally hate seeing my childhood ponies categorised as 'US ponies' because I bought them here in the UK and played with them as a UK kid just the same :/

Me watching Tiger & Bunny for the umpteenth time. I think because a good part of the plot tends to be set around/between October and Christmas, albeit I wouldn't call it especially 'festive'...LOL

I still love their interplay. I'm quite fond of most of the characters by this point. I think it's so interesting that this show was wayyy before Boku no Hero Academy existed, let alone became a sensation, and while I can watch BnHA (I hate the villains mind you), T&B plays up the superhero thing so well that I really prefer it. Doesn't hurt that the main characters have great seiyuu, either, though every time I hear Hirata Hiroaki (Tiger), I think about rewatching Saiyuuki...

I remember there were a lot of parsnips in the welsh version (pannas). Usually associated with things being done by Owain if I remember correctly...

I do use duolingo, mostly for Chinese, although I haven't in a while. I got to a 600 day streak, but then new job hours started and my brain works less well in the darker months, so I am on a hiatus at the moment. I also want to keep my Japanese going and duo is no good for that.

I find Duo's chinese like a logic puzzle more than a language. But I have learned some Chinese from it, because I find myself understanding lines in Chinese dramas and I can definitely hear it as a language now, rather than just a mash of sounds. I don't know how good it is for people who don't already know most of the characters though...I suspect it might be a bit much.

I tried with Korean but it's not very good for that. I think some languages have had more input than others.

My parents are the opposite with the volume control. Watching TV with them sometimes requires earplugs...

I'm really sorry your relatives are behaving so pettily, Ponyfan

So my day was something like this. It snowed again last night, which created a bit of road chaos.

I start work at 10am. My bus runs at 8.18. There is no other bus I can get to get to work, so I went out at 8.10 to wait for this bus. For people who understand celsius, the temperature here was one degree this morning and snowy. Roads here not properly gritted.

Bus came at 8.45.
Bus then got stuck in two long tailbacks because someone somewhere decided it would be a great idea to do road works in two locations on the same route during november/december.
Bus arrived at town at 10.15 (it should arrive at 8.55).

During this journey, I was phoned by the day's Team Leader and then by the overall site boss...to say there weren't enough staff who could get in to work to open the site. So I was told I might as well just head back home when I finally got to town. So that's what I did...

Literally five minutes after getting on the bus back I have a text from my actual line manager saying that the site boss wonders if I can still get to work as one of my colleagues had shown up and they weren't sure if any others might be able to get there. But I was already on the bus back, and my bus is very infrequent...and of course, I can't navigate, so I couldn't get off at an earlier stop and walk the 15 minutes or so back into town.

My line manager said it's fine, and not to worry about it, but the whole thing is just annoying. I felt guilty not being at work today even though none of this is my fault (and I know there won't be an issue over it as I was just following instructions). I also don't know what happens about today's hours and whether I'll need to repay them or not. Hopefully not as I did make an effort to get into work, but was told to go home...

We have snow here too Today is my sister's birthday, and she and her partner are both here at the moment, so we spent a lot of this morning out in it (while it was still snowing so most other people weren't around).

Well timed snow is always welcome