My guess is the parent comment didn’t have markdown list formatting and improper newline formatting at first, so it appeared as on line for a bit before the commenter edited it, but he just responded snarkily instead of being like “hey your markdown formatting borked here”
Can't win them all I suppose! Had a similar thing happen to me recently, and trying to add nuance or explain yourself is usually frowned on for some reason, so it's best to just move on. Hope your holidays are treating you well!
I genuinely try to add to the conversation whenever I comment and avoid "this" style comments. I don't necessarily do a great job based on my comment history.
The blank line between the two actually -- well, I suppose some clients might act differently than others, but certainly in the Web UI on lemmy and IIRC Reddit -- produces a different effect, has a larger horizontal space, and is intended to be a paragraph break rather than just a line break.
foo
bar
(with two spaces trailing "foo") Gives:
foo
bar
And
foo
bar
Gives:
foo
bar
It's not normally a massive difference, but suppose you're writing poetry, say, you'd probably rather have paragraph breaks between verses and line breaks after each line in a verse:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.