alt Hacker NewsBeing a strict subset of Markdown would make it itpossible to achieve simplicity. From the rationale:
> Rules for emphasis should be simpler. The fact that doubled characters are used for strong emphasis in commonmark leads to many potential ambiguities, which are resolved by a daunting list of 17 rules. It is hard to form a good mental model of these rules. Most of the time they interpret things the way a human would most naturally interpret them---but not always.
Indeed. I'd go with dead simple rules. The below assumes whitespace or punctuation on either side:
Any other combination does not parse as formatting, and is considered literal text. Yes, this prevents marginally useful cases like putting an italic fragment in the middle of the word. I'd be fine with that.