[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Markdown's single best idea is that it is very readable "raw". While AsciiDoc is better than, say, html, it seems that's mostly a lucky accident because it's close to Markdown. Where it diverges, it looks like it fell from the XML tree.

Example:

   .Lightweight Markup
   NO THIS TEXT IS NOT LIGHT

Now, in fairness, Markdown doesn't have any methods to do that. But for quotes, Markdown gets it right:

    > this is a quote
    > and that's obvious

While AsciiDoc uses a block that doesn't have any meaning for the casual reader:

    -----
    Quote Quote
    -----

[evacchi]

You can use Markdown-style syntax as well

https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoc/latest/blocks/blockquo...

[qznc]

If I remember it correctly the origin story is „Docbook as non-XML syntax“, so it really fell from the XML tree.

[tannhaeuser]

Actually, Docbook started as an SGML vocabulary and only in version 5 became XML-first. And SGML, as it relates to this thread, is a parser generator you can use to perform markdown-to-HTML conversion (including full HTML inlining), or AsciiDoc/rST or your own custom extension syntax to whatever XMLish angle-bracket markup you wish. So apologies, but considering we have SGML since 1986 or earlier, discussing surface syntax (markdown vs AsciiDoc vs rST vs orgmode or whatever) seems kindof moot and merely a matter of personal preference really.