They went because users were forgetting to close tags and turning entire posts bold/italic etc.
We also used to allow users to colour their writing - this often made the site unreadable.
We will get something back for emphasis and quotation at least. For example I would like to turn the ///quote/// system used in News into a formal function of the site.
It is most likely we'll also return the bold function to the site at some point too.
Sadly though, these are not top priorities right at this moment - so you'll have to wait!
Oh gawd I hope not AP, people used to mess about enough with just the bold, italics and underlining, giving people the ability to use full HTML would just be asking for trouble.
In the olden days here, one could emphasise words by italicising, underlining or emboldening them...actually colouring them in was always a bit extreme! Now, the only method is by capitalising, a system universally condemned on the Internet as "shouting". In fact, I believe it is actually criticised in the Site Rules. Even just allowing italics would be worthwhile.
"We will get something back for emphasis and quotation at least. For example I would like to turn the ///quote/// system used in News into a formal function of the site." eh? Have good old quotation marks gone out of fashion?
not exactly out of fashion, TCL, but there are electronic ways of distinguishing quoted material that may actually be better. Have a look at the posts on this Guardian blog, for instance
Their 'block quotation' option indents the quoted text noticeably on each side and prints it in a lighter face than the usual black. That seems a lot clearer than the rather feeble quotation marks currently supplied for use by ABers.
I noticed aog uses /// when he posts quotes but I don't see that the format does any more than using quotation marks and pressing the / key six times is hardly more efficient than pressing the " key twice.