**Babelfish Markdown** is a shorthand for the requirement to enable communities such as - Federated Wiki, Obsidian, Notion, TiddlyWiki, and Wikipedia to be able to exchange their writing, while preserving a minimal degree of functionality.
A functional requirement of the Hitchhiker Project is to be able to engage as large and diverse a community of writers as possible. Our aim is to engage these writers in an intergenerational, and interdisciplinary dialogue, where we come together around the Improbable Mission to: - Vibe Code the Future
# Babelfish Translation
We expect participants to be able to use thier own language, and to demonstrate the diversity of language and culture that modern technology and in particilar ai enables. We can now: - Speak in Tongues
# Write in your platform of choice
As we look toward the future, we must consider our audience — where they are now, and the direction in which they are moving. Of course, one could ignore that and pursue a “purer” notion of truth or expression, independent of prevailing standards. But that choice has consequences.
When one defines their own direction within a landscape of intersubjective consensus — a shared space of conventions and expectations — the result is almost always one of two outcomes: remaining a niche hobbyist domain, or engaging in a long, uncertain struggle to shift the entire ecosystem in a new direction.
Our approach should be pragmatic: choose your battles carefully. Markdown is not one of them. It has become, and will likely remain for the foreseeable future, the **lingua franca** of technical writers, software developers, AI practitioners, and most creators who work with text-based tools — both in open source and in commercial environments.
In the short term, Markdown is not just a convenience; it is the common ground upon which most digital writing now stands.
# See - Text Requirements