How to add or reply to a forum message
You can use HTML (hyper-text markup Language) to format your posts and replies using the editor provided. These type of editors are known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. You don't have to be a hacker and you don't have to know how to work with code. For that matter, if you don't need anything formatted, just type your paragraphs like you would in Microsoft Word or any other text editor.
The comment boxes below posts on articles other than what you see on the forum, can have simple paragraphs typed to add a comment. You won't see an editor for formatting, but these comment boxes will allow you to format your posts with Markdown. If you look at the bottom of this post, you will see a comment that has a bold title, picture, and link.
Markdown is like a very simple sub-set of html. You can see a tutorial of using the basic syntax here, if you're interested.