Restoring Project 2612 Pack Dates
Nobody likes to see an ugly unfinished update history section. Alas, the Genesis packs are chock full of them for a colorful variety of reasons. To a degree, we can restore those dates with the help of our friend, the Wayback Machine.
Getting dates in the basic cases
Start by going to the Project 2612 page for your target game. You can get there quickly and easily by going to the forum post for the game, which links to Project 2612.
If there were no updates between the initial release and the VGMRips text file update, great news: you need only take the "Date added" date, and the "Set author" (if they were not listed in the text file) on P2612 and add it as the "Initial release." date. Don't even need Wayback for this one.
If there's only one update, the date of that update ("Last update") is also shown. That would seem plenty, but you should proceed to check a "snapshot" before the Last update to make sure the initial release is version 1.00. It could be a smaller number like 0.90 instead.
When there's two or more updates, you can't see any dates other than the initial release and most recent pre-VGMRips update. Then it's time to look through the Archive's "snapshots." Those are records of the previous versions of the web page.
Looking at snapshots
Here's a sample Wayback url:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000105043833/http://project2612.org/index.php
Between web and the second http(s) is a big number. This number is actually a timestamp. If I add hyphens like a VGMRips date, this becomes clearer:
2000-01-05-04-38-33
Like a VGMRips date also, it "nests" in order of biggest time unit (year) to smallest (second).
I set the date above to a very early one because the Wayback Machine adjusts timestamps which it doesn't have snapshots of to match the nearest snapshot it does have. This means, if you took the details part of your game's url and replaced index.php with it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000105043833/https://project2612.org/details.php?id=617
This will take you to the page of the pack's initial release.
Of course, if you have JavaScript on/not blocked, the Wayback Machine also presents you with a toolbar at the top to navigate snapshots. If you're determined to keep blocking JS, and your browser has this feature, you can also turn off the page style to get the Forward and Back buttons of that toolbar in the first screenful.
You now know how to get your game's page in the Wayback Machine. It's time to look at various snapshots until you find the ones with the other updates' dates and "Set version" numbers. (Sometimes the site has a version mismatch from the pack text file: in that case, favor the text file if it's clear it's the same update.)
You don't have to search the snapshots one by one. Change the year part of the timestamp, or use the Wayback's toolbar, to navigate across large spans of time until you see the right Set version appear. With luck, you can get all the dates as easily as the basic cases above.
By the way, you might want to save each relevant shapshot to keep records, or if you're doing this in advance of a planned update (or both).
When the Set update date is in 2014 - or the Wayback Machine has no snapshot for the Set version number you need
In this case, you'll have to try downloading an older version of the pack from the Wayback Machine and checking the file dates of the VGMs; with luck, that'll give you an approximation of when the update was made. All you have to do is click the Download link on the page.
Now, open up the pack's zip in any zip file viewer that lets you see Modified dates. With luck (again), you'll see some dates that seem to match up with the target update. To make this more concrete, see the example date restoration below.
2014-08-25 is almost always the wrong date. Why? Improper bookkeeping. Packs wrere updated in 2014 without the pages being updated to match. Once this was discovered, all affected submissions had their update dates changed to August 25, even if they'd been updated months earlier. When you check the VGMs in the pack, their dates will show that. (Favor dates from the VGMs unless the update is only to other files.)
Only on VGMRips were the file dates reset to 2022-01-05, so sometimes you can get the right VGM dates from the most recent P2612 update, without using Wayback.
When Wayback has copies of these packs, it sometimes only has a too-early and too-late version. Note the url timestamp of the pack file download, or otherwise you'll discover this when you look into it.
If you have copies of old packs from the days of the dinosaurs, and can't find any packs with the right dates in the Wayback Machine, try looking through your old copies. Or, you can try asking in IRC if anyone else has some.
When you post your pack, you should mention that you tried to restore certain version dates from inside an old pack, and note which dates/versions. The pack checkers should be able to help determine if that date is likely to be correct, or is unfortunately one of the fudged dates.
Hands-On Example: Mickey Mania
This pack represents an ugly prospect. It has three dates. One of those dates is in 2014, around the Troubles. The date just before is nowhere to be found, it seemed.
Try the restoration process on this pack for practice. I'll give you the years of each update as clues.
1.00 2006 (Initial release) 2.00 2010 2.10 [Actual date unknown] 2.20 2014 2.21 2022 (Fixed txt file for vgmrips; you don't have to do this one)
Having made the 2.00 update, I was tempted to cheat and use my files to tell. However, my update was made in 2010 during normal maintenance, and five days passed between my submission and the upload. Using the date from my own archived files wouldn't match the official release; this is only good enough if getting the true update date is impossible.
When we reach the troublesome 2014, we have to enter the old pack update. Since it hadn't been updated since, the pack we can download from P2612 should have the correct VGM dates: 2014-03-12.
If you followed my suggestion, you'll have discoved my unwelcome surprise: No copy exists, as far as I know, of the 2.10 update. I searched far and wide to no avail. At that point, I asked advice and was told to give a dummy date, as this was the only date unable to be found.
However, after coming into a full set of Project 2612 packs, I happened to make a discovery that changed everything. And that discovery is this: I failed to check all the VGM dates in the 2014 pack.
Go ahead and do the same yourself; I'll wait.
You should have discovered that a grand total of one VGM was not modified during the 2014 tagging update. Based on this VGM, far from the year (also 2014) of the dummy date I used first, 2.10 happened in 2012.
Article license
The contents of this article are given to you under the terms of Creative Commons Zero, which is the equivalent of a public domain dedication (even where such is not otherwise possible) and grants the same rights. Feel free to copy, spindle or mutilate without even worrying about credit.