I'm kinda surprised that a hyper-local forum has enough posts to encourage engagement. I'm subscribed to many city specific subreddits over the years and most have few posts (except for /r/Portland but that's a different beast) beyond "Who has the best hamburgers?" and "Thinking of moving here."
FPF isn't about "encouraging engagement" in the back and forth discussion type. It is more about giving/getting very localized information/resources. Think "did you get my package" "I need someone to put a new culvert in" "lost dog" "hens for sale" "town hall closed today"
As an example of what you’re saying, the Vermont subreddit skews wildly snarky and mean-spirited relative to either front porch forum or actual people in real life
My small city's Reddit sub is fairly well managed and has a variety of tame posts on local interests, events, and Q&A. You need to have enough people who aren't stuck on a monomaniacal groupthink to keep things civil.
