# Proposal: Support neutral characters for marked items in checklists

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proposal-support-neutral-characters-for-marked-items-in-checklists/4646>\
**Category:** Spec\
**Created:** [April 15, 2024, 5:27am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proposal-support-neutral-characters-for-marked-items-in-checklists/4646 "2024-04-15T05:27:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ahangarha](https://cdn.commonmark.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@ahangarha](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/ahangarha)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 5:27am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proposal-support-neutral-characters-for-marked-items-in-checklists/4646/1 "2024-04-15T05:27:11Z")

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Currently, the only way to mark an item in a checklist is to use the Latin letter `x`.

Since this character is a strong character with LTR direction, it becomes annoying to make a checklist with RTL items because any attempt to mark its items turns the line into LTR (the first strong character of the line becomes `x`)

There shouldn’t be any harm in supporting neutral characters such as `*` or `+` (I personally prefer `+`), but I would suggest supporting both or even more.

```auto
- [] unmarked item
- [x] mark with x
- [+] mark with + - currently not supported
- [*] mark with * - currently not supported

```

* * *

#### Update:

I just noticed that CommonMark does not support checklists at all!  
Then I guess this proposal is pointless for the time being.