If you've never seen a forum like idkfa before (that is, a threaded, multi-section one), don't be immediately frustrated if you don't recognize familiar parts to the interface. We assure you that what you're looking for is there, it just might not be where you're used to looking, but assuredly, it's where it is for a reason.

Conversations in idkfa are organized into "threads", which are like upside down trees, with every branch being a message in the conversation. Most forums, micro-blogging services, and social networking applications are "flat", in that they organize discussions as lists of messages. In large or fervent conversations, this becomes unwieldy, as users are forced to come up with ways to indicate the subject of their reply (the "@user" syntax, or including post number.

This is not the case in idkfa. If you reply to a message (by hitting "reply"), your message will appear underneath the message you replied to. You can reply to one message at a time, but you may reply to as many messages as you like.

Collections of discussion threads are collected into discussion areas, or "items," and serve as placeholders for certain types of conversation. Each discussion area has its own topics and sets of rules to abide by, though they are generally rarely enforced.

Contrary to previous versions of idkfa, you do not need to memorize arbitrary syntax to use special formatting in your posts. A third-party interface called CKEditor is provided, which lets you treat the textbox like you would a word processor, allowing you to embolden, italicize, tabulate, hyperlink, and other basic formatting options provided by HTML.

Also new with the posting mechanism is the ability to include pictures within posts. Don't abuse this.

Beyond that, the best way to learn how to use idkfa is to start doing it. Try running a few searches, or navigate a few discussion areas, or simply introduce yourself.