[Doc-SIG] lists & blank lines (was re: backslashing)

[Goodger, David]

(subject changed to separate the issues)

[I wrote:]
> > Recently, I've come to the conclusion that requiring a blank line
> > before the start of a list is reasonable and correct, even if we
> > don't require blank lines between items. Minimizing ambiguity trumps
> > minimizing vertical space.
 
Edward D. Loper wrote:
> That would make things easier.  But we would also have to require that
> sublists are surrounded by blank lines.
[examples omitted]
> Any objections to that?

None.

> The way my markup language currently works,
> we don't have to worry about how to detect when a new list item
> starts, because list item contents are required to be indented::
> 
>   - this is a valid list
>     item.
> 
>   - This is not a valid
>   list item.

Explicit wins the day. For list items, blank line & indentation ambiguity
will bite us all someday, so removing ambiguity is good.

/DG