There are four ways to reply.
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The reply button at the bottom of the topic. This replies to the overall topic, not to a specific post.
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The reply button on each individual post. The bright blue button that appears when you mouse over a post. This is what you want to use most of the time to reply to what someone said in a particular post.
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Highlight text with your mouse or finger in a post. You should see a “quote reply” button appear above the highlighted text. Click that, then begin. (You can do this many times to multi-quote a bunch of posts.)
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The reply as new topic blue arrow button in the right gutter. Use this when you want to go on a crazy-ass tangent that may or may not relate to the topic at hand. No big, just create a new topic. They’ll get automatically linked together.
Note that the reply panel will show you who you replying to, if anyone — their avatar will show up above your input area in the form of
Replying to post #5 by {avatar} username
If you aren’t replying to a person you’ll just see
Reply to {topic name}
One final note – these forums also support mentioning specific users if you want to make sure your reply catches a particular person’s eye. Use the @ symbol followed by their name. For example: @forumadmin
[Explanation attributed to Stimhack: How do I reply to people]