That's normal because is a responsive template. On tablet and mobile you won't see the menu but just those icons
What radu said.
I can add that the icons are used at low resolutions (equivalent to low widths) because if the menus become "big", they may not fit into the screen.
And are not used at higher resolutions (equivalent to wider windows) because... well, texts are usually easier to understand than icons at least to me, so it's preferred to have.
Quote! I must admit that first time I checked elkarte.net from tablet/mobile I was a little bit "lost" with those icons. So I clicked them all to see what is happening.
One suggestion could be to add those icons also on desktop version, so a user get used with them and when they go on mobile they will already know what those icons are. Just a suggestion, imho ;)
Yep, not wrong...