My understanding is that content categorization here is based on tagging, so you would look for #mechanicalkeyboard, #mechkb, or #ripster.

It's a little more free form, which makes it harder for a community to agree on a category name, but maybe there's tag suggestions - I don't know, haven't made a post yet. It is cool that the system apparently supports multiple tags on a post though, so you can effectively not have to worry about crossposts and split discussions.

Made yourself an ergodox? Tag as #mechkb and #maker and both groups get to talk together.

I think with comments, clicking the wheel works identically to upvoting. With posts, it will be an upvote + share / broadcast to your followers. If you haven't already, the primer is worth a read.

If we demanded longer lifespans for our computing and gadget devices, we'd be implicitly agreeing to a slower pace of technology advances. I have to upgrade cpus and gpus every 2-4 years not because they're cheaply made and wear out, but because the newer ones are 40-50% more powerful than what I bought a short time ago and that's the hardware new programs will be developed for.