The forum and comments are currently implemented using simple text boxes, which is why when you insert a link or an image you see the ugly tags. It's also pretty easy for users to accidentally muck up those tags. It even happens to me on occasions when editing.
As far as user experience goes, this has been one of those things that's been much less than idea.
If I insert a photo, a link or something else, ideally I'd like to see that thing.
I had hoped to be able to find something pre-existing that implemented a simple textbox replacement that let me insert "rich objects". Unfortunately after a lot of searching I wasn't able to find anything that would work the way I need it to.
So I embarked on building one. I'm not much of a javascript programmer but even at my most pessimistic I could not have imagined how challenging building this simple little text entry box replacement would turn out to be. It has everything to do with how broken browsers are
I'm sorry to report it has set me back by about 25 days. On the upside, I now know more about the inner workings of browsers than I ever cared to.
So here's a taste of what you're going to be able to do when entering content in the next version of the software.
Hopefully, I won't encounter any more snags of this magnitude again. (This is actually the first snag I've run into on the entire 6 month long project.)