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Comment by ramses0 | Hacker News Reader

Yup... Lists, `inline`, and ```code``` would be fantastic. It's so annoying for n.yc to be literally the only place on the internet where you can type into a textbox but that textbox isn't some variation of markdown. (even facebook messages [on web] supports triple-ticks for code!)

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> literally the only place on the internet

Haven't worked with forum software other than Discourse, have you? They all still use BBCode.

True, but it's such a mismatch in expectations where the entire tech industry has embraced markdown, but n.yc (tech mecca / water cooler) is most decidedly (and surprisingly) uses NotMarkdown(tm).

HN is an institution. The tech industry should be ashamed that they have HN modes.

I work at Vanilla Forums (we power some of the largest communities online).

I’ve worked a lot on our editors and content formatting pipelines. We support plaintext, markdown, HTML, BBCode, and a WYSIWYG editor with markdown shortcuts.

In reality is estimate the distribution is mostly the WYSIWYG editor nowadays for newer sites and BBCode for the older ones (some users on older entrenched communities really like their BBCode I guess).

You can do code blocks by putting two spaces in front of text:

  This is an example of a code block, if that’s what you meant.

Here's a memorable jingle for that handy new emergency number...

``` https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ ```

  </snark>

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