Tardis:K9

← Manual of style The K9 naming convention is a policy which hopes to ensure greater consistency across the wiki with respect to the spelling of K9, regardless of model. Based upon the majority of printed instances, both behind-the-scenes and in-universe, it is the policy of this wikia that K9 is the preferred spelling of the name.

History
There is little doubt that Bob Baker and Dave Martin intended for their creation to be known as K9. This is readily apparent from PDFs of contemporary 1970s documents available on the "classic" section of the official Doctor Who website. It is also evident in the fact that he is consistently styled "K9" in Target Books novelisations, such as, to pick a random example, Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood. Stories in the 1983 K9 Annual also avoided hyphens, as did contemporary children's fiction like K9 and the Beasts of Vega. The hyphen was also absent from some later, original novels — like The Well-Mannered War. The style "K-9" was never used in any credit sequence of the 1970s or 1980s, and has generally (but not entirely) been avoided in BBC Wales productions. During the 1963 version of the show, K9 was only credited once in any way other than "K9", and that was in Full Circle, where John Leeson was credited as the "Voice of K.9".

This authorial intent has been carried through to the present day, where the K9 TV series, of which Baker is the co-creator and associate producer, also uses exclusively a hyphen-less approach to the name. Neither the show's official website, nor is Network Ten advertisements, use anything other than K9 as a way to style the name.

So, if all that's true, where, then, do we get the seemingly popular "K-9"? Doctor Who Weekly. The original editor, Dez Skinn — perhaps mistaking for a hyphen the little "dot" between the "K" and the "9" on the dog's bodywork — allowed the use of the hyphen in some of the very earliest Fourth Doctor comic stories in that magazine, and the hyphen stuck, as far as Doctor Who Magazine was concerned. It became a part of the "house style" of that magazine to write the name, "K-9". Fandom followed suit. As fans grew up and became part of the professional "industry" of Doctor Who, "K-9" gained some, but not universal, traction.

Thus you will find some 1980s and 1990s fiction (like, for instance, the short story "Housewarming" and the novel Interference) which use "K-9". You will also find "K-9" used in the synopses printed on the covers of DVD releases. The Region 2 release of Full Circle, for examples, uses "K-9" in this way. And it's likely that we will occasionally still see "K-9" in future fiction, depending upon the age of the author, the preferences of the publisher, and other somewhat arbitrary factors.

Still, conforming to the general rule in Tardis:Manual of Style that the more common names shall apply, the rule we've adopted here is that K9 "wins". Though "K-9" may be more familiar to some fans, "K9" is entirely more common in terms of the number of uses in credits, number of uses in the body of fictional works, and in terms of the two occasions in which K9 has headlined his own shows.

By writing this policy, we're not failing to acknowledge the legitimacy of arguments which might be constructed to defend the "K-9" rendering. We're merely saying that for stylistic purposes, it's important to pick one spelling and stick to it.

In article and category page titles
"K9" is to be preferred in the titles of articles, except in the narrow case defined below. It is to be always used in the names of categories, so as to make all categories involving K9 be more accessible by the wikia's "auto-entry of category names" facility.

Exception
If the title of a work actually includes the hyphen, like the comic strip "K-9's Finest Hour", then it should remain in the title.

In the body of an article
Generally, "K9" is to be preferred within the bodies of articles themselves. However, it is understandable that it might be preferable, or even — in the case of quotations — unavoidable to use "K-9" in articles about novels and short stories that spelled it that way in the first place. Thus, redirects to K-9 Mark I, K-9 Mark II, K-9 Mark III, and K-9 Mark IV shall be maintained. There isn't, as of 2010, much of a reason to create the redirect K-9 Mark 2, as the Australian production hasn't actually used a hyphen yet. Also, these redirects are useful for the cast lists of those few productions in the BBC Wales era, where John Leeson was credited as "K-9".

Name for the model used in K9 (TV series)
The name of the precise model that stars in the Metal Mutt Productions TV series is K9 Mark 2, as this name, complete with Arabic numeral, is actually seen on screen, in-universe. Care must therefore be taken when writing other articles not to distinguish between the Mark 2, associated with Starkey, and the Mark II, associated with Romana.