A formal specification for an extendible, human-readable Markdown-like language is a great idea, but something else is needed first. We need a specification for characterising and classifying text processing systems, including text formatting interfaces, mark-up languages, and the text being represented. A mark-up language may be characterised by its use of semantic mark-up (e.g. emphasis rather than italics), single new lines being treated as spaces (to allow formatting on non-wrapping displays), and other such qualities.