Every "random topic" that generally gets made ends up with the TC getting trolled by the usual crowd so I'm not too surprised there's a lack of them. You can't complain about the community not being active if the community is hostile. Generally that deters people from wanting to have a general conversation.
that's because almost all of them at this point are just made by the same few annoying people that no one wants to talk with. you don't see people trolling this topic, do you?
And besides the threads you mentioned, every other topic is the daily troll by SephG, Sess or MWC so I'm not exactly sure what you expect.
well I just ignore the random trolling topics for the most part. I know with a closed community like board 8 that's hard to do since so little goes on you can't just ignore the fact that SOMETHING mildly interesting is happening. for me though it's like, eh, it's not even worth it. those topics seriously bore me because it's always the same thing at this point.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away
http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg