Doctor Who and the Common Knowledge

You may be aware that LibraryThing has released a new feature called Common Knowledge that lets you share what you know about about books and authors.

One of the pieces of information that can be added is 'Character Names'. I think it makes sense to 'catalogue' doctor who books will the doctor and any companions (at the very least).

My question is what do we want to 'call' 'the doctor'?

"The Doctor"
"Doctor Who"
"1st Doctor" "2nd Doctor" etc
"The 1st Doctor" "The 2nd Doctor" etc
"First Doctor" "Second Doctor" etc
"The Doctor (1st)" "The Doctor (2nd) etc

I have already 'done' the New Series Novels with The Ninth Doctor; The Tenth Doctor; Rose Tyler and Martha Jones.

However I noticed that someone had started using The 7th Doctor. (as well as Ace and Bernice Summerfield).

I think it would be good for us to decide which of these options we prefer before 'starting work' and then having to change lots of entries.

Any thoughts?

That was me.

I haven't done a lot of them so it won't be too difficult to change if you everyone prefers the Seventh rather than 7th.

Thinking about it I actually prefer the numbers (e.g. 6th). Partly because it's slightly easier to type.

I just thought we should decide before getting to carried away!

What about those books in which the Doctor features but it is an unknown regeneration?

I would just use "The Doctor".

Are you saying use 'The Doctor' for everything?

If you mean use 'The Doctor' only for 'unknowns' then I agree.

I have this thing about using "The" as the first word in an entry unless you can choose not to sort on it. I know we always refer to "The Doctor" and it's important to differentiate him from any ordinary doctor, but do we really want the entry to file under "t" in a list? Not that I like "Doctor, The" at all, either.

The IgNobel prize for literature this year went to a paper on the problem of "The"...

Using numbers (6th, 8th, etc.) as opposed to spelling the number out (Sixth, Eighth, etc.) at least allows some hope of correct sorting, whether we decide on Doctor (6th) or 6th Doctor. I have no strong opinion on that order.

I'm a professional cataloguer, in case it isn't obvious...

I'm in favour of using 'The'. I think it is important to the character.

I quite like "The Doctor (4th)" because it shows they are the same person a little more obviously.

I like "The Doctor (4th)".

#5 - I meant for unknowns only

#7 and #8 - The problem using "The Doctor (4th)" is that it would be impossible to get a list of just those books featuring the 4th Doctor.

One can use tags to get a list of books featuring the 4th Doctor.

http://www.librarything.com/tag_allbooks.php?tag=fourth%20doctor

Yep - but I'm removing my character and location based tags and I am sure that quite a few others will be as well.

I don't like using 'The' or numeric representations ('6th') so I've been using 'First Doctor' 'Second Doctor' etc

I take the point that using '6th' allows some hope of sorting, but I can't see how sorting applies to these fields.

I'm guilty of changing several Common Knowledge entries to my own preferred format which was somewhat presumptuous of me - I'll refrain from doing so, and from entering any more details for Doctor Who fiction, until a consensus is reached.

I started doing a few of my books before noticing there was a consensus problem. I was listing them as "The Doctor (1)" etc.

I think that The is an integral part of the Doctor's name, and that it's more important for all of the Doctors to be linked together than for each regeneration to have its own separate listing.

edit: also, what about the Brigadier? I had listed him as Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart once, but since he was only a Colonel in The Web of Fear, should it just be Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart?

For the Brig and other military bods how about putting the rank in brackets?

Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Brigadier)

I prefer typing "fourth doctor", including a "Doctor Who" tag everywhere it is appropriate, and using the EDA, NSA, PDA abbreviations (see other topic thread if these are confusing - the one about DW authors on LibraryThing). I include companion names when I remember them. As for the military characters - for Pete's sake, I'm typing "brigadier" (if its a rare exception, and the Brig isn't AGLS, I'll note it... that's probably all of .5% of the time).
Keeping it simple works best for me - mixing numbers with words actually represents a level of complexity to me (JMO).

But Lethbridge-Stewart isn't always the Brigadier. For example in The Web Of Fear he is a plain Colonel. OK for the Brigadier it is a touch of overkill but Benton had three ranks during the televised stories and in one of the books was a lieutenant.

By adopting a name with rank in brackets we have the following advantages
a) it is similar to how military ranks are handled in CK for other things.
b) all mentions of a character are linked together in CK regardless of rank.

Mine are listed with three tags I think. 8th Doctor, Doctor Who, science fiction. etc.

I do.

Doctor Who (Fictitious character)
10th doctor
Martha Jones (Fictitious character)

It's sort of a cataloging thing.