[mb-users] [unknown date]

[Brian Schweitzer]

>
> I suppose it should work the same way you can (currently) enter a year
> but no month or no day. The server limits years above 1900 (since
> presumably no music was released before that, though I do seem to
> remember a discussion about that, too), and I suppose this is should
> be maintained, IF a year was entered.
>
>
> > > Another possible suggestion for an immediate work-around would be to
> > > agree on a fictitious year that would be known to imply [unknown],
> > > such as 1899 or 1600 (or pick one). Does anyone know if there's a
> > > limit to how early the release year can be?


I know the limit is lower than 1900 - I've entered releases with events
earlier than that, back to around 1887.

If we're going to pick a ficticious date to use, PLEASE let's pick one
that's actually ficticious?  Let me remind you that the wax cylinder
business first has releases in 1887 (though very very few until 1889) and
piano rolls go back to 1847.  If we ever decide to expand even further into
old music media types, orchestrions take us back to the 1770's; and who
knows what other form I've forgotten (antique music boxes?).  Someone always
did pick 1900 as an "obviously bogus date" - we have a bunch of CDs with
1900 as their year in the database because of it.

If we're going to use a fake year as a bogus year, then lets pick something
that actually IS bogus, rather than picking something that's just not
frequently actually valid.  Say, 9999?

Brian
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