Lists Reasoning

Unordered Lists #

A large majority of wiki engines use an asterisk (*) to denote bullet lists. The multiple asterisk approach for sublists was the first wiki syntax for sublists. Users do not need to count leading spaces like in markups where a sublist level is determined by the number of its leading spaces.

Ignoring the indentation makes at least the first-level (most common) lists work across practically all wiki engines that use asterisks for lists, and is also friendly for users who indent their lists reflexively.

Multi-line and multi-paragraph lists are too rare and complicated to include in core standard.

Ordered Lists #

The number sign (#) is used for ordered lists in most wikis. Using the same rules as for unordered lists makes it easierto learn and remember the markup.