At what lengths does longer fade-out and/or silence warrant a separate recording or merging, if ever?

MusicBrainz
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I am trying to sort out a couple of recordings:
Ironheart
Ironheart (no choir)
Ironheart (instrumental)

Ironheart on Power of Darkness, Volume 2: Action and Classics, Volume One are already merged.

Ironheart (instrumental)/(no choir) are currently separate.

I am trying to decide if Ironheart (instrumental)/(no choir) should merge or if Ironheart should be split.

Ironheart on Classics, Volume One has about a 5 second longer fade-out time and then about 5 seconds of silence afterward, making it roughly 10 seconds longer than the one on Power of Darkness. There is also double the Classics, Volume One releases vs Power of Darkness with this track and so the recording length is shown as 3:12, which seems a bit misleading/confusing if you were looking at only the Power of Darkness one. On top of that, not only do they generate different fingerprints but also separate AcoustID tracks. Compare fingerprints #44075151 and #28076509 | AcoustID

This is pretty much the same deal with Ironheart (instrumental) and Ironheart (no choir) Compare fingerprints #12889057 and #29081900 | AcoustID (use offset +1).

In both cases, there is some distinct difference Chromeprint detects in the last 3rd, I but can’t hear this difference. I can technically see this difference when testing in Audacity if I zoom in a lot but the differences are like less than a millisecond at a time.

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I think it also depends on how long the track is. So kinda a percentage thing too.

Something around 10seconds on a 3 mins track seems like a fade to be merged, but 20 seconds it a bit more borderline.

And silence I would never count as part of the time. For example it is quite common to have an album reissued with extras tagged on the end. And a big silence get slapped on the end of what was the last track to separate from the extras. Even if that is a whole minute of extra silence I’d still treat it as the same recording.

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I don’t think there is a hard-and-fast rule, other than that recordings that are extended or shortened as a result of their inclusion on a re-release by way of fades or silence do not require a new recording, because the newer release does not represent a new “mastering”. This seems to be the “rule” no matter how much the time of the fade changes.

However, I must admit that I have a personal rule of about 5 seconds as being a reasonable difference before a new recording might be warranted (although definitely not required).

See Style / Recording - MusicBrainz, in particular section: Recordings with different durations

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Merging (instrumental) and (no choir) it is.