bulleted list conventions

man-pages(7) is silent on how to handled lists. the only reference i can see is in an aside in an unrelated section:
When enumerating a list of error codes, the codes are in bold (this list usually uses the .TP macro).

glancing through existing man pages, it seems that .IP is the answer. but beyond that, we only have chaos. can we pick & document a standard here ?

for numbered lists, the tags are manually maintained, but use a few diff styles like:

	.IP 1
	.IP 1.
	.IP 1)
	.IP (1)
	.IP [1]
	.IP 1:

there's also alternative lists that use a few diff styles:

	.IP a)
	.IP (a)

for unordered lists, there's a couple of diff bullet point styles:

	*
	\(bu
	\-
	o
	+

the * form seems to be the most dominate, but \(bu shows up a good amount.
* is a bit easier to type, but \(bu renders "more correctly" ? *shrug*

finally there's the matter of indentation level. 3 seems to be the most common, but there's a healthy amount of 2 in there too.

	.IP * 3
	.IP * 2

Two convenient uses for .IP are
(2) to set a paragraph with a short tag that is not semantically important, such as a bullet (•)—obtained with the \(bu special character escape sequence—or list enumerator, as seen in this very paragraph.

Quoted 30 lines · Mike Frysinger

man-pages(7) is silent on how to handled lists. the only reference i can see is in an aside in an unrelated section:
When enumerating a list of error codes, the codes are in bold (this list usually uses the .TP macro).

glancing through existing man pages, it seems that .IP is the answer. but beyond that, we only have chaos. can we pick & document a standard here ?

for numbered lists, the tags are manually maintained, but use a few diff styles like:

	.IP 1
	.IP 1.
	.IP 1)
	.IP (1)
	.IP [1]
	.IP 1:

there's also alternative lists that use a few diff styles:

	.IP a)
	.IP (a)

for unordered lists, there's a couple of diff bullet point styles:

	*
	\(bu
	\-
	o
	+

the * form seems to be the most dominate, but \(bu shows up a good amount.
* is a bit easier to type, but \(bu renders "more correctly" ? *shrug*

Quoted 4 lines

finally there's the matter of indentation level. 3 seems to be the most common, but there's a healthy amount of 2 in there too.

	.IP * 3
	.IP * 2

hmm, it looks like groff alredy documents the answer.
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/groff_man_style.7.html

Quoted 6 lines

Two convenient uses for .IP are
(2) to set a paragraph with a short tag that is not semantically important, such as a bullet (•)—obtained with the \(bu special character escape sequence—or list enumerator, as seen in this very paragraph.

since man-pages(7) makes no reference to groff_man_style(7), and only a single reference to groff_man(7) for syntax on a specific macro, can we document this in the man-pages(7) page explicitly ?

* use .IP
* use (1) and (a) style

* use \(bu for bullet lists
* use indent of 3

* (as a tip) use .RS & .RE for indented lists

-mike