Allow Markdown in site-based comments

[batrachian]

Title:
Allow Markdown in site-based comments

Area:
Comments

Summary:
Expand markdown support to cover all areas of user input - comments currently may only use markdown if they are posted by email.

Description:
Markdown is a cool thing! We can use it (or not) in entries, and post-by-email comments are always using it, but there's no way to use Markdown in comments made directly on the site. This is a thing that we ought to be able to do.

Poll #16839 Allow Markdown in site-based comments

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
24 (51.1%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
9 (19.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (2.1%)

(I have no opinion)
13 (27.7%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I would be delighted if it were possible to *voluntarily* invoke Markdown in comments. (I don't much care for it in emailed comments, as I have yet to figure out how to properly escape asterisks.)

[anaraine]

This. If you had to put '!markdown' on the first line by itself in the comments for you to use it, like with entries, that'd be fine.

(I too v. much dislike it in the emailed comments. For the same reason.)

[zing_och]

+1

[denise]

The Markdown formatting in emailed-in comments is because it's the only way to not have linebreak problems, btw. (For long and boring reasons.)

You can escape asterisks by putting a \ before them.

[anaraine]

Thank you! That is incredibly helpful. (It's not really a big deal for me - I'm usually in a position where I can open up the page and type my asterisks as I want them, but I remember it being profoundly irritating when the reply-by-email was first implemented and wouldn't want Markdown to be the default of site-based interaction.)

[larissa]

I would prefer if it was just an option to toggle somewhere than having to call it out every time you want to use it; that would get very tedious very quickly. No idea if that's feasible, but I would personally use Markdown everywhere across the site if I could and would soon get very tired of having to write "!markdown" in front of every single comment! I can kind of understand why that's the case for entries, but in comments? Not so much.

[batrachian]

Absolutely agreed that on-site ought be voluntary, and first-line !markdown is good for consistency.

(this is me testing asterisk escaping - *if* it works properly, a backslash before the asterisk should make the thing.)

[joyjumps]

I agree with the !markdown idea.

[aedifica]

This is my "with changes".

[kaberett]

+1 (don't care if it's a site-wide option or a per-comment !markdown thing)