Terrible Basecamp message syntax

The issue is that their wiki-like syntax is too simple, buggy, and miserably fails at supporting simple quoting of HTML or XML content, which we often exchange with our customers. We have reported this, but they seem to consider that the broken format is a feature, not a bug.

Have you read Why's tutorial or the original page for Textile? I'm sort of surprised that you consider Textile terrible, but not HTML or XML terrible. What would you recommend?

Joseph, I am not sure what you are referring to, but I do not think you understand the original issue.

Whether one likes HTML or XML is not the point, the point is that we need to *quote* pieces of HTML or XML in the messages exchanged with our customers.

37signals has so far arrogantly defined that this was even an issue, which is disappointing from a company that claims to fight mediocrity (that part of Basecamp in particular *is* mediocre for sure).

37signals can figure out the way of accomplishing this, either by amending the wiki syntax used, fixing existing bugs, or allow editing messages with something like the YUI Rich Text Editor.

they seem to consider that the broken format is a feature, not a bug - this made me laugh when I read it and makes me cry every time I have to use it

Markdown, of course, would solve these issues while maintaining the simple expressive power of plain text.