Kbin’s implementation differs from Reddit’s in at least one way that I’ve run into: Reddit permitted a link to be italicized using asterisks inside the link. Like:

I read a [book called *Arabian Nights*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights).

Valid in Reddit Markdown, but in kbin’s Markdown – dunno what lemmy does – that’s not permitted, and gives this:

I read a book called .

You can do:

I read a book called *[Arabian Nights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights)*.

Which yields this:

I read a book called Arabian Nights.