I found a messy solution to allow some text formatting HTML. In author.php I did this:
<?php
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[p]”, “”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[/p]”, “”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[b]”, “<b>”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[/b]”, “</b>”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[u]”, “<u>”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[/u]”, “</u>”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[i]”, “<i>”, $curauth->user_description);
$curauth->user_description = str_replace (“[/i]”, “</i>”, $curauth->user_description);
echo $curauth->user_description; ?>