On Thu, Jun 05, 2014 at 10:38:01AM -0700, Greg Wilson wrote:
> As above, Markdown wants three spaces between the bullet (or in this
> case, the dash) and the list item.

From the specs [1]:

  List markers must be followed by one or more spaces or a tab.

so I don't think you need three spaces.  However, you may want them if
you expect to have paragraphs:

  Each subsequent paragraph in a list item must be indented by either
  4 spaces or one tab…

[1]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#list