Hmm. This is really basic jQuery stuff, my take is we'll have to get comfortable with this kind of calls or move to something else for templating (which is why I initially suggested [handlebars](http://handlebarsjs.com/))…

Here's the three lines commented sequentially:

```js
// we're going to set the html contents for the view element
this.$el.html(          
// which is an empty <a> tag
              $('<a/>')
// which has a given href attribute
                .attr('href', '#call/' + nick) 
// which we append two other nodes
                .append([
// which are 1. a user icon
                         $('<i>').addClass('icon-user')
// and 2. the nickname
                         nick
]));
```

So at the end we obtain something like:

```html
<a href="#call/niko">
  <i class="icon-user">
  niko
</a>
```

Is it a bit more clear?