[ebbv]

That doesn't really address the main objection to the name "Standard Markdown" unless you already know what the problem with the name is (and thus the implications of the slight difference.)

It would be best if the team would just go another route entirely.

To be honest, I think this industry wide devotion to Markdown is hilarious, since to me it's a pretty garbage way of solving an easily solved problem. The main/only thing in its favor is its ubiquity.

[jjoelson]

What percentage of all Markdown written is on GitHub, Reddit, or Stack Exchange? What percentage of rendered Markdown served to users is from those sites? Tough to estimate, but I would say it's certainly a majority. Surely any flavor of Markdown agreed upon by those sites can make a pretty strong case to be considered "standard."

Out of curiosity, what do you think is the better "easy" solution to the problem Markdown is trying to solve?

[Tyrannosaurs]

Standard implies "normal" or "default" as well as "standardised".

Whatever you may think of Markdown (that is markdown as created by Gruber), it surely isn't unreasonable to suggest that if any version can make that sort of claim, it should be the original.