Comment by reaperducer

markdown tried very hard to encode conventions that were already used in Usenet, email, and other text media

For those of you who weren't there:

  *bold*

  _underline_

  ~strikethrough~

  /italics/

  > Quotation

  - list
  - list
  - list

I've been using these for almost half a century. They're much easier and more intuitive than Markdown. I see no compelling reason to change.