Anthony I REALLY like your analysis. I think it is both helpful (and courteous) to the OP but also applicable a great deal further. It is on that wider basis I reply which I hope the OP will not mind.
The problem as I see it, is that you're still focused on using "articles" as your content. Are you positive you have chosen the right medium for your site if you want to make an article repository?
I have been trying out various article systems for a while and not satisfied. Most stick on too many value added features which cannot be disabled and require template edits. Managing categories is usually far too rigid.
Right now I'm hopeful of the add-on wiki (EWRcarta) - I particularly like the glossary function of links on terms as my area is educational.
Like the OP I am very focused on articles - I'm a writer. But I hope that if I keep the articles short, linking chapters if necessary, I can generate linked discussions. I plan to place links top and bottom of the articles to relevant forums as I prefer forum format to Comments.
Next point, don't get overly focused on member numbers for a forum that is a few days old. For the majority of new forums, if you get 100 members in the first year, then that is a good target. The second year should get to something like 1000 and then it continues in such a dynamic growth manner.
It is a minority of forums that take-off and explode in growth.
I guess the outlook is very much affected by how commercial the project needs to be. If a new admin is looking to develop a niche interest community without money being involved then the necessary slow growth in the first year is not an anxiety.
But if the forum is to be a moneymaker it looks very different.
From over 30 years self employment my advice is - don't give up the day job! It's an old saying.
You get to the point where the choice to continue on two tracks is painfully necessary if you're to get a minimum of 6 hours sleep in 24. Until then self employment is a joy in so many ways but stable income is rarely one of them. Forums or whatever else is involved.
If no "day job" exists substitute any kind of part time or low level work you can do which will bring in bread n butter money.
Bread n butter money is whatever brings in RELIABLE and REGULAR sums of money.
A modest £21 a week is actually worth double that if it comes in every week reliably. It means peace of mind up to the level if £21 which is worth real money. You can earn £21 by cleaning a house, valeting cars, painting, rubbish clearance to the local tip, gardening, babysitting, doing shopping or errands for elders, typing, delivering telephone directories, selling on ebay.
I've been there on most of those. Don't knock it. In fact you can earn a lot more than £21 on such work by doing more than 3 hours a week; but I used that as a minimum to make the point that small amounts are highly worthwhile to underpin the dream business project.
People get way to wrapped up in member numbers in there first year of a forum, instead of just focusing on creating good content that is discussable and has holes in it for views.
Really like your "holes" concept. I must remember that as I have a tendency to be too didactic asfter years of reseaerch and experience.
I've found a 10 question quiz is very popular - and single questions - "What do you think of this [url or whatever]?"
Also bringing in those URLs or an issue to consider - this week's discussion point, at a minimum.
Why not ask the most active early members to take on an issue area that interests them to post in a discussion prompt per week? This only needs to be a sentence or two, or a URL with a one line description, plus the golden "What do you think of this?"
You have to constantly evolve if you want a forum to explode with traffic. If you don't have those skills, which I certainly don't, then you have to use what you have to create uniqueness that attracts.
The first question any new website should ask themselves when starting is, 'What makes me unique from anything else being done, so people would want to come and register, participate, and build this website?'
Otherwise known as USP - Unique Selling PPoint.
I have seen it described in New Age terms as - what do you personally have to offer the universe through this project, which is your special, sacred gift?
That could be a smoother ball bearing; a chunk of sensitive, efficient code; a sympathetic and resourceful gathering around a common problem; a dramatic gripping roleplay approach; or cutting away the crap around health issues (Anthony mentions opening up corruption to fresh air and transparency).
If you're doing the same thing as lots of others already, you just made your job a lot more difficult. You must be niche, you must be doing something unique. ... it's not being done already. You could be making some videos of your niche, that others aren't. You could be covering topics that other sites in your niche aren't. Uniqueness... study the competition and do it differently.
I agree
studying the competition is key.
But I would twin that with
studying your own gut which is NOT the same as studying your navel!
Studying your gut asks questions like -
- can you stick with this for long hours of work without getting sick of it?
- can you put in a LOT of UNPAID hours? - new projects eat your life if they are going to be successful. As a general rule think TWO YEARS before you get your life back. Don't do this with a new baby, a new marriage, or in weak health, unless you have dedicated partner support (which has been explicitly agreed).
- when you're bloody exhausted, it's 3am and you're feeling sick of the whole thing and your hot hairy lover awaits in bed will you give it that last quiet 10 minute check before signing off?
- can you cope with endless repeats of the same support questions - even though you wrote a beautifully clear explkanation about just this? Can you stay polite when they are not?
If your gut desire wobbles badly and feels like soup as you read the above then niche or no niche you're heading for failure. You could still succeed if you think those questions over and talk honestly with your gut about gearing up to cope with that level of pressure. Gut dialogue could need days weeks or months to find the bedrock strength needed: better hesitate now and work this out than crash later which will hurt much more.
Which is not to say that niche offering/ personal sacred gift/ USP is not just as important.
Lastly an interesting distinction arises around what we LIKE to do and what we LOVE to do.
I used to make exquisite silk lingerie for myself, not having money to match my desire for such quality. I like sewing especially delicate stuff, by hand. A lot of people admired my lace trimmed petticoats, chemises, nighties in ivory silk.
So I made some for them. But I found that if I wasn't doing it for my own pleasure it was mere drudgery for low pay, which threatened to put me off sewing forever. I stopped doing it for others.
Where I have been the most successful in making money is in services/ products that I do like, a lot, but they are not my most sensitive or passionate joy. There is enough pleasure to make the work pleasant most of the time but not so great and sensitive a passion it erodes when I have to put in the hours and I'm tired and bloody fed up with it. At such times "think of the money" however modest the money is, helps me go the extra mile. For about 50% - 80% of the time I enjoy the project and the money pushes the rest out of me.
Self employment ain't a soft option. It's tough, unforgiving of mistakes, exhausting, unstable. But oh the freedom from commands from fools, from bureaucracy, the flexible hours (though long). For me the freedom is key.
The Delphic Oracle of ancient Greece reputedly said "Know thyself." Well the Delphic Oracle ran a damn fine business for many centuries with viral marketing, secondary products, the lot.
Two of which commented (on other stuff though). When I woke up and saw that the article had been viewed and retweeted this many times I wish I could have gotten a buck for every read (I wonder if there is a mod out there for that). 
