Markdown
1. Overview
Content for our website is produced in Markdown. Markdown is a lightweight markup language which is directly convertible to HTML, yet eminently readable in its raw form. Indeed:
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.
Using Markdown has numerous benefits. Initially it may seem restrictive, however this allows us to achieve a very desirable level of consistency in our site content. From an authoring standpoint, the limited formatting options available to you also encourages you to focus on writing and content instead of worrying about how your content looks.
There are dozens if not hundreds of Markdown implementations in existence. Most of these adhere quite closely to the original "core" Markdown syntax set out by John Gruber; however almost all of them will implement "extensions" expanding on the base syntax. For example, almost all implementations support some form of table syntax. As such you should be aware that not all Markdown guides are entirely applicable. The Markdown implementation currently in use on our site is PHP Markdown Extra.
The inline HTML embedding functionality supported by Markdown has been disabled, as this conflicts with our goal of using the restricted syntax of Markdown to create a beautifully consistent site. The formatting structures provided by Markdown have proven to be adequate in the vast majority of cases, and any deficiencies are best addressed by policy or purpose-built shortcodes.