User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Spelling debates/@comment-5918438-20161203104721/@comment-188432-20170129043643

User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Spelling debates/@comment-5918438-20161203104721/@comment-188432-20170129043643 Advisor exists in the following Eighth Doctor novels ... but adviser is present in So from this simple survey of one range, we can see that both are used but the more common spelling was adviser.
 * Legacy of the Daleks (but see below)
 * Endgame
 * Trading Futures
 * The Domino Effect
 * The Last Resort
 * To the Slaughter
 * The Eight Doctors
 * Vampire Science
 * Genocide
 * Option Lock (where it's used a lot)
 * Legacy of the Daleks (but see above)
 * Dreamstone Moon
 * Seeing I
 * Placebo Effect
 * The Janus Conjunction
 * Dominion
 * Demontage
 * Interference - Book One
 * Interference - Book Two
 * The Taking of Planet 5
 * Frontier Worlds
 * The Shadows of Avalon
 * The Space Age
 * The Ancestor Cell
 * Escape Velocity
 * Eater of Wasps
 * The Slow Empire
 * Dark Progeny
 * Grimm Reality
 * Mad Dogs and Englishmen
 * Trading Futures
 * Sometime Never...
 * The Gallifrey Chronicles

There's ambiguity in more recent, BBC Wales era novels too, with adivsor being in -- whereas adviser is in a lot more.
 * The Monsters Inside
 * Peacemaker

So, with things like the K9/K-9 debate, we'd generally go with what's more common. But spelling debates can be more nuanced.

And, truth is, the Oxford English Dictionary has no problem with either. It says they're both correct, but adviser is more common. So there's no cause, in my view, to have the bot correct to adviser.

The OED also indicates that adviser may be less formal, while advisor often indicates an official position. I'm not sure that's entirely supported in the little survey I just did, but there were definitely cases of "scientific adviser" and "scientific advisor" -- by far the most prominent use of the word in DWU fiction.

So I think this is a case where we can just leave things as they are and not feel too badly about it. Remember, we have a redirect at scientific adviser too.

If there's any question left over, it's not really a spelling debate so much as a story titling one. The redirect at the capped version -- Scientific Adviser -- goes to the short story, and it arguably shouldn't. It should go, instead, to the lower-cased page, as it would probably be more commonly used as a title (as in position) than as a reference to an obscure short story. Again, though: not really a spelling debate, so I'm going to close this one as officially no change needed.