BBcodes allow you to create special effects without knowing HTML.
You can see what bbcodes are available for use on this board by clicking the BB CODE HELP link that resides below the smilie box when you compose a post.
I've attached a screenshot showing where that is.

Here's is an example of what bbcode can do:
Wichita Eagle Sports Feed - Thunder News


This is an RSS newsfeed from the Wichita Eagle website that returns only news about the Wichita Thunder.
I made this happen by using the the proper bbcode thusly:

Normally, you would put something between the tags, but I have coded thunder tags to just display the RSS output, so you wouldn't insert anything between the tags.

Kansas Weather Alerts from NOAA via Weather.gov

usage:


results:

Sedgwick County Weather Alerts from NOAA via Weather.gov

usage:


results:

Here's another handy bbcode.


result:

OFF-TOPIC
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fourscore and seven years ago the lazy brown fox jumped over the fence. fourscore and seven years ago the lazy brown fox jumped over the fence. fourscore and seven years ago the lazy brown fox jumped over the fence.
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The code takes your text and formats it like the above example result. You can insert this as many times as you wish throughout a post.