So I've heard that engaging content is #1 for a forum to gain interest but I disagree. If your forum has lots of engaging content but there are 10s or even 100s of other places that have engaging content as well, what would that do for someone visiting your site/forum? If they are already part of a community and are satisfied with the discussion there, why would they join your forum? What do you think is the key to interesting someone who is already happy with their community discussions to joining your forum?
I think the key to truly lucrative success is a lot more robotic and analytical than we want to think - repetition, clickbait, and exploitation. If you want to be successful as a forum community in modern era (and keep your soul), it is much more difficult and based more in luck, but you will still find yourself feeding into one of the three categories in someway or another.
