Continuing the discussion from Voting/Auto-editor Request Thread:
Would taking catalogue number in count in the automatic order (like it is done in label page and in artist releases page) fix your example?
Why do you hate Series Numbering? It is surely a major reason for a series? Series allow a way to put order to something that has no natural ordering. It allows the addition of a “numbering” system that is totally separate to the normal Releases or Release Groups. It specifically avoids “messing up with bogus information” anything in the normal Release Groups.
Please LOOK at both the examples in that thread. They would not be fixed by using a catalogue number. These are Release GROUPS and don’t even have Catalogue Numbers.
https://musicbrainz.org/series/28eb3de0-b67f-4864-be65-b98c0f0c2718
https://musicbrainz.org/series/18c33160-fb17-4f41-88a5-46bdc3a9a9a0
The Spike Milligan series is just too old to find a catalogue number for the old 1980s tapes. I can’t even find examples of those original tapes and LPs. And I have looked. Even if you throw the tapes out and only look at the Amazon 2016 audiobooks, still there is no “order” to be used on the Amazon series. They have no Catalogue number. They have nothing to put into Order apart from text on the images. They are all released on exactly the same day.
Similar with the Douglas Adams series. Those Release Groups are a mixture of USA and UK Releases, again there is no Catalogue Number to work by as you are looking at a Release Series. The USA all released on one day, the UK all released on a different day. Both cases the whole series is released on a single date.
Please actually look at the examples and stop assuming I am too lazy to find older examples of the “original” releases in both examples. Remember that a Release GROUP does not have a catalogue number. Dates do not work in either example here. Please give me another method to put these into order without a numeric series. 
A Numerically Ordered Series is a perfect solution, why do you want to remove it?
(Maybe a mod can take the two separate discussions that Jesus2099 has started here and merge them so this discussion has a better context? Or does this forum not allow merging threads?)
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A few other examples spring to mind. How would you have a “Top 100 Albums of the 1980s” series without manual numbering? Any Chart Show type list?
The beauty of a database like this is you can make make separate lists of the data. Series of Releases of Release Groups. By making a Series there is no “bogus mess” left in the original data. Just a link to a list. A very neat solution. A Top 100 chart cannot exists on just a date or catalogue number sort.
For this one to be ordered by its series number, you have to turn it to automatic ordering, instead of manual.
Manual ordering works with relationship editor green arrow up and down buttons, without considering anything else.
My use of the series is more about the actual real series that the labels put up in place, usually, sorting by date (of the first release), catalogue number (of the first release), then name, is good for these.
So I forgot about the top this/that series.
I didn’t think about release (group)s without catalogue numbers, without release date, nor without ascending name, either.
I didn’t mean you are lazy or anything.
It’s just always better if things can be sorted out on their own, to avoid having to add manual stuff as much as possible. Because you never know if it will be maintained by someone else, once you don’t care about this series anymore or once you leave MusicBrainz editing.
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This is the point I was trying to make in the edit. Manual ordering is broken as it was impossible to manipulate that list correctly. Attempts to use the arrows kinda “jam” and don’t let you set the order correctly. Give it a go - try and move Rommel up to number 2. It refused to move for me using Vivaldi.
I have used these arrows a lot when setting the orders of multiple works in a single recording. And seen the odd bug, but not one that actively blocked fixing the list that much before.
I can see your use of series, and understand that, but some of us use them to set an order when your method is not actually possible.
If I coulda, I woulda, but here I couldn’t, so I didn’t. 
I created the Series because looking at the book’s on Spike’s page in the DB meant they just showed out of order and it isn’t clear enough how to listen in order without looking at each cover in turn. A Series was a neat solution for that.
I am hoping the series I setup are self explanatory. They are also complete so don’t need “maintaining” as such. Spike is dead so unlikely to be writing or recording any more of this series.
If you think I need to add more details about the series ordering in the edit notes, then I can do so. But these two examples stand out well just by looking at the covers involved.
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