Generally, no it's not. Still what you are doing is not a bad idea at all. I can tell you what I know about forums, since I started one for a client and moderate on two others.
There are two main things that are hard about forums:
1)
Starting them. If you don't have an active forum with content, people are not going to join and post. If people don't join and post you aren't going to have content. So what do you do? The answer is either to get some friends to help you, create some accounts and start posting as different people, or hire a service like Forumelves.com(Update: I have just been informed that Forum Elves seems to have gone out of buisness, but I know there are others that can be used).
You need to market and promote it just like any other site, and many forum owners have posting contests, but the quality of the posts can suffer if you don't have strict rules about what people can post. Sometimes you can ask people to donate the prizes since they will get the exposure for their business, or you may have things like scripts, domain names, or services that you can give away for the contests.
2)
Keeping them going. You can't just put up a forum, get it started and then sit back and relax generally. The things that need attention are spammers, clueless new users, trolls, and people that just break any rules you have. Depending on what forum software you use, hackers may also be a problem that can deface your forum or delete everything, so backups are crucial.
As your forum gets going you will notice some members are better than others. They help people a lot, answer questions, and even do some research to help others. They may also post long detailed replies to what people ask.
When you see these people, you should talk to them about becoming a moderator on your forum. This will give you help in policing the site and answering questions.
Generally you don't have to pay your moderators, because they are already doing most of what you want because they enjoy your forum and helping others. By giving them the power to edit and delete posts and users, you are rewarding their interest by letting them maintain the standards of your site, which they clearly already enjoy.
But you will also want to try and make sure they feel appreciated, or they may lose interest after a time. If your forum is making some money, find ways to share some of that with them either as cash or things like domain names if they are interested in that. Gift cards can work too.
The one thing you have to be careful of is that your moderators don't abuse their power and upset your members. Some times they start acting like they are the owner and get so picky that they can bother others.
One thing that I am not sure about is how to best monetize a forum. If adsense doesn't seem to work, I would experiment with ad styles and placements, but finding a system like
Linkworth's LinkWords that turns keywords into links that display ads might be a better option.
