I can share an update - if you look at my earlier drone post.....
The drone site is going great guns and the book now makes over $1K per month. Other income from affiliates, adsense, etc. has jumped way up.
It is not quite accurate to say I am making all the money from a forum...since the site consists of a WP blog and a XF forum - the blog gets much more action than the forum. However, the site is now up to making real money of a sort. No, I'm not ready to buy a private jet but in my (semi) retirement the income allows us to live better and help our kids out more, etc.
Traffic is up 200% or so in the last year.
It does take some work, but it's fun and I do need things to do to fill up the days and nights....so that's OK. Also, I get to fly drones...which is really cool. Look at my media gallery for some samples - here is one vid.