Markdown Discuss - May 2012 - Is there anyone would like to hold a standard organization of Markdown syntax?

My stackoverflow question here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9222990/is-there-an-official-organization-for-discussing-or-releasing-standard-markdown.
And github issue here: https://github.com/michelf/php-markdown/issues/27.

So, if there were somebody hold that, the markdown world would be much
better than ever!

If held, the ORG need a concil to discuss standard, and a website to
publish standard. I think most of the author who implemented markdown
converter in any language could be the concil member, not only the original
author (Because he has not been maintaining the syntax for so long time.).

OK, what's your idea?

mytharcher
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20120519/61e21e01/attachment.htm>

Similar ideas for a standard for extensions have been kicked around in the past.
It always collapses in arguments about what such a standard should look like.

There are two main problems with such an effort. First, there is no broad
consensus among users on what the objective of such a standard should be. At one
end of the spectrum you have relative Markdown purists for whom simple, readable
plain text formatting is paramount and the base standard only needs a few key
extensions. At the other end of the spectrum you have those who want Markdown to
be a complete rich text markup language and are willing to accept more complex,
less readable markup to achieve that goal.

Efforts usually break down during bickering among those factions so we never get
to the second problem: implementers. Those who implement Markdown extensions
generally do so to meet their own needs or preferences. It's not at all
certain that they would update their work to meet a standard that may not do
what they want - particularly when we can't achieve a broad consensus on
such a standard in the first place.

In my view, the only hope for such an effort would be to get authors of most the
popular extensions to sign on and come up with a process for forming such a
standard among themselves before all the public bickering starts.

Good luck. 


----- Original Message -----

From: "Junyi Yan" <mytharcher at gmail.com> 
To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net 
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 11:02:41 PM 
Subject: Is there anyone would like to hold a standard organization of Markdown
syntax?

My stackoverflow question here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9222990/is-there-an-official-organization-for-discussing-or-releasing-standard-markdown
. And github issue here: https://github.com/michelf/php-markdown/issues/27 .


So, if there were somebody hold that, the markdown world would be much better
than ever!


If held, the ORG need a concil to discuss standard, and a website to publish
standard. I think most of the author who implemented markdown converter in any
language could be the concil member, not only the original author (Because he
has not been maintaining the syntax for so long time.).


OK, what's your idea? 


mytharcher 
_______________________________________________ 
Markdown-Discuss mailing list 
Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net 
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20120519/89d48a01/attachment.html>

> If held, the ORG need a concil to discuss standard, and a website to
> publish standard. I think most of the author who implemented markdown
> converter in any language could be the concil member, not only the
original
> author (Because he has not been maintaining the syntax for so long time.).
What impact would you expect (or require) this to have on the current
varied Markdown
implementations? I'm not sure that creating a bureaucracy in this manner
would help
all that much - yes, you could perhaps evolve a standard after substantial
discussion,
but what next?

The current implementations serve a purpose for the authors, and the fact
that they
are all somewhat different is a reflection of the use that the authors put
them to. A
new standard would either (1) be a subset of all the existing
implementations, or (2)
a combination of all available options.

(1) is not going to work for those who use existing conversion tools and
rely on the
features that your standard doesn't support. Why should they change what
they need
just because a committee says so?

(2) is, frankly, going to be a mess. Your committee would have to choose
between
different syntax for very similar features, and that's going to alienate
some of the
development community.

The likely outcome is (3) a supported feature list, more than minimal, less
than the
total. Somewhere between (1) and (2) above. And then, what about those who
really
want features not on your committee's list?

I have some sympathy with what you're trying to achieve, but I don't
think
that a
committee (which will inherently have no power) is the answer. I'd be
interested to
hear other opinions though.

Regards,
Paul
-- 
"Software - secure, cheap, quick - choose any two"
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20120520/88980e37/attachment.html>

i did write a long post in response to this thread...

but i guess it's best to just let this listserve wither.

-bowerbird
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20120530/2cdbb02d/attachment.html>

one of my conclusions in my long post was that 
"markdown standardization ain't gonna happen".

as i read fletcher, he came to the same conclusion
in his long post, for pretty much the same reasons.

honestly, if it was gonna happen, it already woulda.
requests will persist, and might well even increase,
but the catatonia has hardened, and is full-on now.
so the primary purpose of this listserve has become
for markdown developers to ignore markdown users.
the markdown listserve is dead; long live the listserve.

i also discussed how markdown could've prevented
its present situation, but that's an exercise that calls
for demonstration in the real world, not "discussion";
so i will set out to provide the proof in that pudding...

-bowerbird
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20120530/e78d4965/attachment.htm>