For instance Pink Floyd’s “The wall” has an original_date of 1979-11-30, but has had many releases since then.
Where do we put original release dates? I’d think it would be under release groups.
Currently the original release year is automatically deduced from the earliest releases available in a release group.
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If you think a release group has the wrong original release date, you may want to look up the earliest release and add it as a new release to the release group. I’ve done this a few times just to make sure the overview page is in order.
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This used to be problematic because of the issue of finding a trustworthy tracklist for old releases, but now we can enter releases with no mediums (it’s a bit of a hidden feature, but you can remove the default medium) so it is easier 
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But then we end up with almost empty releases that have no purpose other than to be placeholders.
Shouldn’t we be able to add an original_release_date to the release group record instead?
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We’d be able to attach cover art, label information, release level relationships, folksonomy tags, … - a lot of stuff. The track list isn’t the only useful information on a Release entity, and, like all other Release information, is better left blank than left having information that potentially isn’t correct.
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Frankly yes. A trakclist-less release would really be a pity.
I have never seen a tracklist-less release in the artists I edit, yet.
If I would see one, I would feel it really be a pity and probably complete it by all means.
I really prefer not, I would never trust a date like that.
If you really want people know a random date without adding the matching release, you can still write it down in the release group annotation.
I still prefer having an empty release, which is better foundation to discuss its existence with the editor who adds it.
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It’s, for example, relatively common to have info about the artists, label and catalog number of an old release (for example because you have access to an old catalog) but not to have the exact tracklist. It’s still useful to know this existed, even if its existence is the only thing that is known so far - someone who finds a copy of the release can always fill up missing info later on.
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I don’t agree that such releases would be just placeholders. You can actually add a lot of information to a release despite the track list. After all it is an actual release and not just a placeholder because we have no field for earliest release date on the release group.
And if the track list is known it should of course be added. Having a separate “earliest release date” field for the release group would just mean we duplicate that information.
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Alright. Good points all. I’ll add a record for a release that has an incorrect date.
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