Any better way to create MediaWiki numbered lists?

Question

When using MediaWiki\'s markup language, the only thing that I hate is creating numbered lists. The only way I know to create a list is to do something like this:

Answer 1

The #: works, but you cannot create a section with spaces, so I would prefer the non-working option. Anyone knows a similar syntaxis that does the trick (start numbering at given value)?

This response is probably a bit late, but I figure I'll add it in case anyone stumbles across this, as I have. You can create a section with spaces by doing something like:

# Item 1
#: 
#: 
# Item 2

This will appear as:

1. Item 1

2. Item 2

Now, before you say this doesn't work, the trick is to add an ASCII no-break space after the #: rather than just simply hitting spacebar. You can add this by holding ALT on your keyboard and typing 0160. Doing this should add the usual Wiki paragraph formatting while preserving your numbering between #s.

Hope that helps!