I will preface this thread by saying I am a moderator of the Ape Escape series since ~2014. We used to use a Google Doc leader board and were one of the early migrates when SRC opened to the public. Some runs from before that time have been grandfathered in and currently stand without set dates. This wasn't a problem in the past, as SRC allowed to upload runs without a date. However, when the SRC team made a change so that any submitted run requires a specified date, it broke the leader boards and hid all runs with a blank date. This was a site bug and was fixed thereafter.

However, we've been at a stand still with changing the leader board to take advantage of variables and subcategories because we can not edit runs without a date. We have 6 categories for Ape Escape 1: Any%, All Monkeys, 100%, and No Infinite Jump variations of said categories. The Infinite Jump/No Infinite Jump variations are perfect uses of the subcategory system, but it would require us to edit a lot of runs (which is fine for runs with a date). However for runs without a date, we are required to input a correct date, or a placeholder date of some sort. I personally have no idea when these runs were done, not even the year. Some of these runners are unreachable and can not give an estimate of when their run was done.

How would we be able to rectify this situation and edit the boards to properly take use of variables/subcategories, or edit runs without a specified date?

Edit: Using the set default command would work for all runs on a single category, however we want to move runs from X No IJ category to X, No IJ variable. and remove the preexisting No IJ categories. Thus changing the base category of the run.

If you decide to use a placeholder date, you could go with the release date of the game and then add a mod note detailing the potential inaccuracy of said date. That's one option.