================================================================
my proposal:

inline markup   http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-text.html

  example    xhtml                comment
  *phrase*   <em>phrase</em>      same as markdown (textile treats as strong)
  `phrase`   <code>phrase</code>  same as markdown (textile uses @ for code)
  @word@     <var>word</var>

             <strong>phrase</strong> usually bold (vs. em being usually italic)
	     <ins>phrase</ins>    in xhtml2 it is span edit="inserted" datetime="2003-01-13T13:15:30Z" http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-edit.html
	     <del>phrase</del>
	     <q>some quote</q>    in xhtml2 it is <quote>some quote</quote>. see http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200411/quotations_and_citations_quoting_text/
	     <sup>phrase</sup>
	     <sub>phrase</sub>

lists     http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-list.html
  - unordered list item 
    wrapped text
  -- nested item
  # ordered list item
  : term : definition             like PmWiki; Wiki uses leading semi colon

  dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li 

block markup http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-structural.html

  =heading 1=     <h1>heading 1</h1>
  ==heading 2==   <h2>heading 2</h2>
  must appear on line by itself
  white space on either side of the = does not matter

  p starts with a blank line or beginning of file or close of a block (table, dl, ol, ul, center, div, h*)
  ends with a blank line or end of file or start of a block

  <blockcode> and <pre>        <blockcode> is xhtml2, not xhtml1

  <blockquote cite="uri"><p>...</p></blockquote>   # note still doesn't have support for standard formatting of attribution at bottom, so could insert <p class="attribution">there
      or use a title attribute of title="title, author, date" which javascript inserts on the bottom
      you embed a cite element at the bottom -- which may or not contain an <a> element to an external source or an internal biblio entry

  <cite cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml">[XML]</cite>
  
  :classname:              <div class="classname">...</div>
  :(#id)classname:         <div id="#id" class="classname">...</div>
  :classname:Some Title    <div class="classname" title="Some Title">...</div>
  alone on line; rest of it may be an optional title for the block
  ends with next line at same indent level or less
  title is suitable for figure or table etc.

hypertext links and anchors   http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-hypertext.html
  external links
     http://wherever.com     <a href="http://wherever.com">http://wherever.com</a>
       pi might exclude "http://" from default label
     [[http://www.google.com|This Link points to google]]
     <a href="http://www.google.com">This Link points to google</a>
       is there any real savings?
  relative links, different document but same "namespace"
     [[pagename]]
     [[pagename#anchorname|link label]]
     system will present nonexistent links differently
  link to some known internal/external site in a special namespace
     [[namespace:pagename]]
     [[namespace:pagename|link label]]
  relative link within document, to a section
     ==(#anchorname)Some Heading==          like textile, insert after * or == to add an id attribute. or without a # for a class.
     [[#anchorname]]                        <a href="#anchorname">Some Heading</a>
     automatic titling from sections
     xhtml2 uses any/@id for internal references
     html4 uses a/@name (illegal in strict) or any/@id
  relative link within document, to a footnote 
     see http://www.archiva.net/footnote/ and http://web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001626.php and http://www.brandspankingnew.net/archive/2005/07/format_footnote.html
     [[Ref:#refname]]                      <a href="#refname" class="Ref">[refname]</a>
     ... 
     <footnote id="refname">...</footnote>
     <div class="footnote" id="refname">...</div>
     Whether to use superscript numbers or [name] is up to presentation layer.
     The footnote definitions can go anywhere.
     The notes are ordered in the order of first reference in the text. 
     footnote content is dc:author="Fred Flinstone" dc:date="2005"
  downloadable media link
     [[Media:foo.mov|title]]

embedded image link  http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-image.html
   see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax
   [[Image:foo.png|alt text]]          <img src="foo.png" alt="alt"/>

figure
   <figure>...</figure>    RFC 2629? 
   <div class="figure">    http://www.w3.org/2004/04/xhlt91/

table   http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-tables.html
  table based on tab stops from end of >1 space/tab
  {{table}}

horizontal rules  http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-structural.html
  ----
  at least 4 hyphens. must be alone on a line.
  xhtml2 has <separator/>

pragmas processing instructions
  {{toc}}
  {{references}}

disable processing

bibliography


================================================================

Long list:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lightweight_markup_languages
     http://micans.org/zoem/#ecosphere (gone now?)
     http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TextFilter

comparison:
        http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:markup_compare
        http://bluebones.net/2005/02/humane-text-formats/

discussion:
  http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/SmartAscii
  http://zwiki.org/StructuredTextSucks
  http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2004/03/19/in_defense_of_wiki_markup
  http://wellbourne.dyndns.org/~rsanders/blog/archives/000298.html [gone]

features:
        tables, footnote

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiMarkupStandard
  long overview of some choices

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiMarkupStandardIsMisguided
  agrees that leading space become monospace is problematic, particularly
  with ambiguity with the almost-as-bizarre blockquote syntax. 
  and the "ticky" bold and italic.
  notes that with WYWIWYG html editor, issue somewhat goes away.

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SillyTextFormattingRules
  another critique of traditional wiki markup	

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?CharacterFormattingRules
  good comparison of different phrase-level markup

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?ParagraphFormattingRules
  good comparison of different block-level markup
  also has good commentary on problems with Ward's markup

above comparisons don't cover things like markdown or StructuredText
also don't cover linking syntax

================================================================
http://atox.sourceforge.net/atox.html
	ascii 

================================================================
http://code.google.com/p/pandoc/
	converts between different nonxml markups
================================================================

* Markdown, SmartyPants http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ and http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
  works with MT and Bloxsom. used in wordpress
  TextMate has a markdown mode: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/11.html
     and MultiMarkdown too: http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2006-April/009472.html
  perl originally. MIT license 
  ruby implementation: http://bluecloth.rubyforge.org/
  php implementation: http://www.michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
    with table support: http://www.michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
    <div markdown="1"> ... </div>
  http://fletcher.freeshell.org/wiki/MultiMarkdown  Fletcher T. Penney
     xslt
     footnotes, cross-references, tables
     cpan Text::Multimarkdown http://www.annocpan.org/~KULP/Text-MultiMarkdown-1.0.1/lib/Text/MultiMarkdown.pm
       Darren Kulp
     a better version: http://fletcher.freeshell.org/wiki/MultiMarkdownTextMateBundle

various hacks: http://fletcher.freeshell.org/wiki/MarkdownStuff
  includes tables and footnotes, not in the original.
  see also http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2005-August/001441.html
cheat sheet: http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/jayoung/site/pages/ewe/markdown-syntax-cheatsheet
      http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
      http://www.wishingline.com/downloads/documentation/markdown_cheatsheet.pdf

Markdown vs. reST: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001189
	 says Markdown does better at multi-paragraph list items than AFT and Textile?
has a reverser from html to Markdown: htmltext (python)
Markdown uses punctuation chars for markup
allows html markup to just be inlined
does automatic fixing of ampersand as appropriate
also smart about allowing <>
see also http://gu.st/proj/HumaneText.service/ and HtmlService: http://crypticlife.net/archives/2004/03/30/textedit_textile_and_html.html

markdown

	Heading 1
	=========
	Heading 2
	---------
	## Heading 2				either way can be used
	*italic* or _italic_
	**bold** or __bold__
	--- or ***				horizontal rule
	line ending with 2 or more spaces	<br>
	preformatted text: 			optional space, colon, blank line, 4blanks or tab. gets you indented pre text
          some text
	* list item
	  
	  with multiple paragraphs
	1. ordered list item
	> block
	> quote
	`code span`
	![alt text](/oath/foo.png)		inline image
	<http://www.example.com>		<a href="http://www.example.com">http://www.example.com</a>  
	[link text](http://example.com "alt")
	[link text][id]
	[id]: http://example.com "alt text"
	\*					escaping

smartypants will do these conversions to "smart" characters:
	    "stuff" and 'stuff' and ``stuff'' to curly
	    -- to en dash, --- to em dash
	    ... to ellipsis
outside of <pre> <code> <kbd> <script>
requires/obeys backslashes: 6\'2\" tall	

================



* ReST reStructuredText http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
written in python. in public domain.
Seems to want to be the whole document, not a snippet (as is useful in a web form)
Based on setext and python StructuredText
Written in python. now called docutils.
They apparently considered lots of alternatives: 
  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/dev/rst/alternatives.html
Their own list of problems:
  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/dev/rst/problems.html
Has a table parser.
Editor support:
       emacs table.el at http://table.sourceforge.net/
       restedit http://python.net/~gherman/ReSTedit.html (old)
                 http://www.pycs.net/bbum/2004/12/29/#200412292
                 http://svn.red-bean.com/restedit/trunk/README.html
                 will also do markdown

* Stx http://www.sange.fi/~atehwa/cgi-bin/piki.cgi/stx2any
written in m4. bsd-style license.
converts to HTML, man, LaTeX and DocBook
has looked at the others
has tool for html to stx

* rdoc http://rdoc.sourceforge.net/
ruby license


* Textile http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/license.html
MIT-style, in php.
supports export to TeX and PDF
Example::
  h1. Header 1
  bq. Here is
  a block quote.
  # item 1
  # item 2
  * bulleted item
  * another bulleted item
  "linktext":url

textile
	h2. Level 2 Header
	h2(classname). Level 2 Header     <h2 class="classname">Level 2 Header</h2>
	bq(citurl).                       <blockquote cite="citeurl">Text</blockquote>
_emphasis_             <em>emphasis</em>
__italic__             <i>italic</i>
*strong*               <strong>strong</strong>
**bold**               <b>bold</b>
??citation??           <cite>citation</cite>
-deleted text-         <del>deleted</del>
+inserted text+        <ins>inserted</ins>
^superscript^          <sup>superscript</sup>
~subscript~            <sub>subscript</sub>
@code@                 <code>computer code</code>

==notextile==          leave text alone (do not format)

"linktext":url         <a href="url">linktext</a>
"linktext(title)":url  <a href="url" title="title">linktext</a>

!imageurl!             <img src="imageurl">
!imageurl(alt text)!   <img src="imageurl" alt="alt text" />
!imageurl!:linkurl     <a href="linkurl"><img src="imageurl" /></a>

ABC(Always Be Closing) <acronym title="Always Be Closing">ABC</acronym>

================

* Wiki 

many places for documentation (what else is new with wikis?)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_markup
  http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TextFormattingRules 
  http://repose.cx/emacs/wiki/WikiMarkup.html (for emacs wiki, not original wiki)
  http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:syntax (DocuWiki php GPL)
will export to docbook: http://www.tldp.org/wt2db/

Example::
    monospace
  wrapped para
  * bullet
  ** nested bullet

	==Heading Level 2==
	---                                     horizontal rule is 4 hyphens alone (block element?)

	''italic''				<em> or <i>?
	'''bold'''				<strong> or <b>?
	'''''bold italic'''''
	&ugrave; or  &#93;			any html entity
	<br>					self-closing?    
	<center>...</center>			(block only? multiple blocks?)
	<math>...</math>			special wiki math markup internally
	<tt>...</tt> or <code>...</code>	monospace span
	<sup>superscript</sup>
	<s>strike out</s> or <del>strike out</del>
	<u>underline</u> or <ins>underline</ins>
        <blockquote>...</blockquote>            indent but format normally (block only? multiple blocks?)
         line starting with space               fixed width obey pre until blank line (what other transforms? url changing? include initial white space?)
        ** list item                            newline is end of item; blank line is end of list (how continue lines?) 
        # numbered list item
	; term : definition
	: indented line				indents rest of pararaph by that amount (any line in para? just that line or whole para?)
	[[relative link]]                       to other Relative_link page
	[[relative link]some other title]       to other Relative_link page under another link text
	[[Economics#See also]]			link to other page at anchor
	[[#example]]				link within page (div is not a block element?)
	<div id="example">...</div>		
	http://bareurl.com
	[http://footnote.com]			(can the contents be any URL? how make a footnote otherwise?)
	[http://namedlink.com Some Name]	note no pipe
	[[Namespace:Argument|Title]]
	[[:Namespace:Link Title]]		leading colon is to link to something about that object
		[[:Category:Character sets]]	link to this category
		[[Category:Character sets]]	place this page in this category (can go anywhere)
		[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]]
		[[Wiktionary:Hello]]		link label is "Wiktionary:Hello"
		[[Wiktionary:Hello|Bye]]      	link label is "Bye"
		[[Wiktionary:Hello|]]		link label is "Hello"
		[[Special:Contributions/UserName]]	a special link

	[[media:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]]		download link
	[[Image:foo.png|some alt text]]		image with alt text
	[[Image:wiki.png|frame|Wikipedia Encyclopedia]]		image floated to right with frame and caption
	[[Image:wiki.png|right|Wikipedia Encyclopedia]]		image floated to right without frame and with caption
	[[:Image:wiki.png]]			image which is a link to an image description page
	[[media:wiki.png|Image of the jigsaw globe logo]] 	link to an image without embedding
	ISBN 012345678X
	[[1969-07-20]]	
	<nowiki></nowiki>			span literal. character entities still expanded (use &amp;), and wrapping still done (presumably this means pass through to browser)
	<!-- comment here -->			not shown (passed through or not?)
	__TOC__
	{[CURRENTYEAR]}				various automatic variables
	{{template-name}}			insert markup from somewhere else
	: ~~~					name
	: ~~~~					name and date
	: ~~~~~					date only
        {{ref|Jefferson}}     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes
			      <span class="reference"><sup id="ref_Jefferson" class="plainlinksneverexpand">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_name.html#endnote_Jefferson]</sup></span>
        # {{note|Jefferson}}                    # <cite id="endnote_Jefferson" style="font-style: normal;">[[#ref_Jefferson|'''^''']]</cite> 

escaping of |] in titles?
escaping of [< in normal text?
conversion to smart quotes?
table support: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Table
footnote support: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes

how do sidebar or other set off section in a special style (note, warning, info)
    basically a block with a class and default title
how do block quote with citation?

about wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MediaWiki

does it leave oll xml untouched? including CDATA and pi's and script elements?
	
================

* txt2tags http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/markup.html
GPL, python
supports tables

* Others
  asciidoc http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/asciidoc.html
           GPL
           in python
  http://www.triptico.com/software/grutatxt.html
        GPL perl
  html
        http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/Html2DocBook
  Almost Free Text  http://www.maplefish.com/todd/aft.html
         seems very reliant on tab chars
         has a table parser
         implemented in perl
  setext  http://hospex.icm.edu.pl/which-spec.html http://docutils.sourceforge.net/mirror/setext.html
           now dead
  deplate http://deplate.sourceforge.net/Introduction.html
          works with rdoc and deplate
          can produce docbook, xhtml, LaTeX, txt
  doco http://doco.sourceforge.net/
  pod
  bbcode

software: AFT
          fullname=Almost Free Text
          home=http://www.maplefish.com/todd/aft.html
          description=in perl. uses "*" directives.
          license=artistic
          topic=non-xml markup, html templating

software: UTD
          fullname=Universal Text Data
          home=http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/data/utd.html
          description=uses {} instead of () or <>
          topic=non-xml markup

================================================================
* Non-XML Markup for Data

post: http://www.pault.com/X/1026876487
      topic=non-xml
      description=<<EOF
mentions YAML, DL, ONX, BiXpath, Chunk
YAML http://www.yaml.org/
  java processor at http://helide.com/g/yaml/
ONX (open node syntax, formerly SDML) http://www.seairth.com/web/onx/onx.html
   :phrase["The word \"test\" is used here."]
DL http://www.notdotnet.org/dl/
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/datalang
   http://www.tbradford.org/index.html
   wrote dbXml (then forked to Xindice and dbxml.com) now http://www.xqrl.com/people/bradford.html
   also http://xml-labrador.sourceforge.net/
   MIT license
UserInfo {
      name     "Tom"
      age      29
      happy    true
      password "something"
      favColor {
         red      255
         green    0
         blue     0
      }
      groups {
         "admin"
         "staff"
         "wheel"
      }
   }

Chunk http://www.pault.com/pault/pxml/nxml.html
BiXpath http://www.pault.com/pault/pxml/bixpath.html

JSON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON

software: Boulder
          home=http://stein.cshl.org/software/boulder/docs/Boulder.html
          language=perl, java
          topic=non-xml
          author=Lincoln Stein
          license=Artistic
          description=<<EOF
example:
 Name=Lincoln Stein
 Home=/u/bush202/lds32
 Organization=Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
 Login=lds32
 Password_age=20
 Password_expires=60
 Privileges={
   ChangePasswd=yes
   CronJobs=yes
   Reboot=yes
   Shutdown=no
 }

EOF

software: SOX
          home=http://www.langdale.com.au/SOX/
          topic=non-xml
          description=<<EOF
example:
html>
    head>
        title> My Home Page
    body>
        h1> Contact Details
        p>  I can be contacted at
            a>  href=mailto:me@myplace.net
                this address
            except when on vacation.

EOF

software: SLiP
          home=http://www.scottsweeney.com/projects/slip
          topic=non-xml
          license=MIT
          language=python
          description=<<EOF
has comparison at:
  http://www.scottsweeney.com/static/projects/slip/XMLShorthandComparison.htm
has pine-like editor
EOF

software: Table
          home=http://www.arp.harvard.edu/eng/das/manuals/table.html
          topic=non-xml markup

standard: DEL
          fullname=Data Extraction Language
          home=http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-data-extraction-20011031
          topic=xml
          description=markup for extracting from non-xml data sources