Skype is using classic confinement which is designed as a kind of transitional way for snaps to work without having to do all the interfaces stuff (whilst interfaces are refined so that snaps are able to request the access that they need and I suppose we need a good GUI for all that like Android has, as well). It has full (except root) access to your system just like any other non-confined Linux application would. They’re manually reviewed (so it’s of similar status to the old Skype Deb that was in Canonical Partners repository - which is actually slightly more secure (because of the review, though it’s closed-source so the review can’t be that thorough) than the current Skype which requires installing a Microsoft repository) and can’t be installed on Ubuntu Core (an all-snap distribution). Note that there is a warning in GNOME Software about Skype using classic confinement and if installing from the command line you have to use --classic.
The forum software is Discourse and yes it is absolutely amazing (as well as free software (GPLv2)). If you’re talking about the general server/forum maintenance I think @niemeyer (the snapd lead) does a fair bit of that.
Don’t be sorry, comment as often or as little as you like, just stick to the tips in the FAQ 