Until CommonMark there were a large number of ambiguities for which there was little alignment. Base Markdown is such an anemic format that it requires extensions to be useful to more forms of writing.

Along these lines...I'm surprised the HN crowd isn't into blogging in markdown, published in a git repo. About as simple as it gets and you don't get tied to a single platform. You could key sign it to ensure authenticity for when somebody rehosts it or whatever.