Opinions on in-band variation signaling

[Sean Leonard]

Regarding the text/markdown registration:

At least one commentator (Larry Masinter) specifically requested that the variant identifier be included in-band in the Markdown content, rather than as part of the metadata. I disagree with in-band signaling (as has been registered earlier on this list). Nevertheless, I wanted to take a straw poll and see if anyone has tried to implement in-band Markdown variation identifiers, with any success. Do any implementers have experience with picking the type of Markdown based on some info at the top of the Markdown content? Does it work—or will it never work? Or is it “bad” for particular reasons?

By in-band, I mean a Markdown file with content like this:

>>>
!pandoc
% This is a Title
% Sean Leonard
% November 2014

Blah blah *blah*.
<<< (fortin’s suggestion)

>>>
[!pandoc]: # "This is a pandoc document."
% This is a Title
% Sean Leonard
% November 2014

Blah blah *blah*.
<<< (seantek’s suggestion)

-Sean