Is this a case of deleting or merging?

MusicBrainz
1

Hi all,

Typically I understand the arguments for prioritizing merging over deleting. Is this still the protocol if the offending release does not match the theoretical merge target’s track count due to an error?

Here is my explicit example:

This release was originally added to MB with a track missing. There was never an 8-track version of the album, which can be confirmed by going through the Wayback Machine, my own personal knowledge, so on (there was a version uploaded to Bandcamp with an incorrect track order, but that’s just a separate coincidence). Going by the edit notes, it seems that the submitter manually added the tracklist sourced from RateYourMusic. Maybe RYM’s tracklist was wrong at the time, maybe the submitter simply made a human error, who can say. All I know is that I’m 100% confident that this version of the album never existed and does not belong in the MB database.

And so, that leads me to the question: despite the discrepancy in track numbers, should I still merge it into this version of the release? Does that cause any problems? Or is this a case where deleting it is justified?

Thanks so much!

1 Like
2

If you are certain the original editor made a mistake, then add the missing track before the merge.

3 Likes
3

I left an edit note to original edit, for the record:

Edit #26709364 - Add medium tracklist:

  1. Priest in the Laboratory
  2. Prostrate
  3. Disjecta Membra
  4. Cathexis
  5. Fossil Record
  6. Clairvoyant
  7. Line of Smoke
  8. Carrion

Compared to 2014 Bandcamp https://web.archive.org/web/20140622025348/whitesuns.bandcamp.com/album/totem (released 2014-03-18)
There is a missing track, World Lock and the tracks are in wrong order, starting from track 3:

Bandcamp tracklist:

  1. Priest in the Laboratory 05:54
  2. Prostrate 01:50
    3. Cathexis 03:54
    4. Fossil Record 05:16
    5. Clairvoyant 05:24
    6. Disjecta Membra 03:01
    7. World Lock 05:04
    8. Line of Smoke 03:18
    9. Carrion 07:07

But that Bandcamp redirected to another one for DOWNLOAD: https://web.archive.org/web/20140730001327/theflenser.bandcamp.com/album/totem (released 2014-03-14)
Which had a different tracklist, also, same missing track World Lock but no track order difference:

  1. Priest In The Laboratory 05:54
  2. Prostrate 01:50
  3. Disjecta Membra 03:01
  4. Cathexis 03:54
  5. Fossil Record 05:16
  6. Clairvoyant 05:24
    7. World Lock 05:04
    8. Line of Smoke 03:18
    9. Carrion 07:07

The rateyourmusic https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/white_suns/totem.p/ is not archived for comparision. We can ignore it, Bandcamp is the source and RYM was maybe wrong, and we can only see their latest page version.

It seems the artist had quite some issues with their album upload.

These two different track orders, released in 2014-03-14 and then 2014-03-18 could be kept, with their respective Bandcamp URL, in MB.

If we want to not hide this artist struggle with distributing their album online:

Instead of merging, we could use and complete the missing track MB release to reflect the 2014-03-08 release with different order 9 track tracklist, released in 2014-03-14.

And according to these eveidences, we should probably re-date the existing corrected track order MB release to 2014-03-18 instead of 2014-03-14.