What is the preferred way to add a numbered list using markdown?

Question

I noticed my answer to a question was revised and approved for no apparent reason other than markdown preference.

Question

What is the preferred formatting of an ordered list using markdown? I can't find a preference for numbered lists in the Style Guide for questions and answers. On a "Stack site" like this that uses markdown syntax that doesn't care, it might seem nitpicky. But also considering syntax wasn't targeted for community revisions, should a best practice be defined?

I didn't edit the Style Guide as its unclear to me how to build consensus, so I posted this question. It's also not clear to me if more appropriate that changes should be made on the formatting help page?

Background Rationale

In my original post I used a nonordinal number (0.), intentionally not defining index. The edit changed placeholders in favor ordinal numbers (1., 2., ... N.) to define an index.

Although it is syntactically correct, when edited, using ordinal numbering seems less flexible or clear (in a diff); creating a cascading change effect.

Answer 1

tl;dr: Output matters, the rest is up to you.

You’re free to use whatever numbering scheme you want as long as it gives the correct output. There is no preferred way, and this is good – needlessly limiting people’s ability to produce the desired output serves no purpose and can even be harmful: Too many rules alienate users from writing posts, and that’s definitely not what we want.

As the output shows, there is no difference between a list numbered with any 0 or 1

0. a
0. b
0. c

1. a
2. b
3. c

and a list using the actual numbers that appear in the output as well:

1. a
2. b
3. c

1. a
2. b
3. c

The first number you use is the starting number for the list (but both 0 and 1 give 1), so to begin with 4 you could do 4., 5., 6. or 4., 4., 4. or even 4., 0., 10., the output is the same. In the case of your answer the editor just wasn’t aware your syntax was fine.

Ask Ubuntu’s formatting help page is a single page with everything you need to know about markdown by design; let’s keep it as simple as possible. It says:

A numbered list:

1. Numbered lists are easy
2. Markdown keeps track of the numbers for you
7. So this will be item 3.

Answer 2

1. Markdown is not perfect, but we can't expect everyone to know LaTeX, so markdown is the easy way for the most common denominator to be able to produce something readable. :-)
2. Your answer wasn't revised for no apparent reason: all edits need to be approved by 2 reviewers unless the reviewer edits it himself.
   So ubashu probaly saw your edit as the perfect edit and went "Wow, this doesn't need to wait for additional reviewers" edited your edit, didn't change anything and presto: your edit got approved by one single reviewer.
3. This behaviour is something that more experienced reviewers use sparingly: I normally approve an edit and allow another pair of eyes to have a look as well, but it's understandable in this case

We're all only human...

_{^{Except me, I'm a Vorlon... ;-)}}