Jokes aside I think the snapshot model of minecraft releases would move the project forward.
It could go this way:
1. News "1.3 (insert new feature here) test 1" (or something like that)
2. The post would contain experimental build with new feature that didn't got merged to the main repo yet.
3. People would test it because muh new tfs and report bugs.
A little spoonfeeding (compiling for them the ready feature that needs to be tested and posting it in news/download) would give you more testers because let's be honest, no one bothers to compile pull requests of other people and you advise against using appveyor builds.
Now, while we're at it: was the bug with random disconnecting fixed? I intend to fork in order to rework area spells, but I need a playable build.
Of course not every pull would be posted, but something big ready to testing is fine imo.
A successful test could lead to test 2 or stable sub-release. A failed test could lead to test 2 with fixed bugs.
Two biggest things that are stopping tfs from going forward are lack of spoonfeeding new users like in the past and no support for newest game versions. With these two satisfied you could have lots of testers, just saying.