Our moderation team was just expanded recently. I can ask an admin if you like (you can't be an admin, those are just Itch.io founders). But is it really such a good idea to force growth? Quality beats quantity when it comes to community interaction. It seems to me that people talk plenty on the main community forum, and that's not even counting the communities of various jams or games. Be active yourself, post good conversation starters and people will respond in kind.

Sounds like a cool suggestion, I know a group on discord that features a game-room there (being about cute animations, but also mainly including bird-stuff), so next to personally playing specific games, like when using a different browser or type of phone, only being available as download, etc. I recommend some itch.io-games because its cover looks awesome and originally Ive even heard of this community rather by getting it suggested too. Also social-media with a bird-emoji could possibly get some references to especially textbased-storylines, which sound bit rare on the web. I especially adore the selectable features when uploading a game to itch, never seen it on other forums yet. Just had like 4 analysed still, this one sounds my favorite (same for the post's colours optional dark-mode & variety of games).