The quotation tags are easy enough to learn, and are documented on a page
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode</a>
that is reachable from the Go Advanced view of replying to any forum post, and also by drilling down from help and rules. Lots of users have learned how to quote excerpts from earlier posts, and lots of users have shared the knowledge in earlier public replies in various threads. Moreover, even more users have learned how to drag with the pointing device (usually a mouse) to select text, and how to copy and paste that between quotation marks. That’s all very standard knowledge for current personal computers.
So the real issue here is whether CC should be just like every other forum, and make it easy to one-click quote an entire post as soon as one starts composing a reply. I am a moderator of another online forum where that capability of the forum software is enabled. I agree with the management of this forum that that small increase in convenience doesn’t make up for the large increase in annoyance when some users (maybe not you, not ever) quote too much of a preceding post and turn a thread into a tedious “he said, she said” metadiscussion. The current default settings seem to work just fine in keeping CC one of the most informative and helpful online discussion forums on the planet. The various members of the moderation team have discussed this issue with the forum owner, and the management consensus is that the easy quote button is not a feature we need to enable on College Confidential.