I don’t know about spambots, but here is one explanation of the Piefed karma mechanisms I’ve read here:

https://lemmy.zip/post/57943283/24279809

Oh, yes, I only noticed after replying to you that the OP mentioned gaming. I generally wouldn’t recommend most SFF PCs for gaming either.

Though spend a bit more for a solid i7 and avoid SFF.

The SFF’s can be great for just browsing, office use, light photo editing, etc. Obviously nothing too demanding, but they save a lot of power for their intended purpose. I picked up a USFF Lenovo ThinkCentre about the size of a Mac Mini for $100 a couple years back.

Interesting points. Piefed, the software on their instance, does have some form of karma, but supposedly it’s not publicly visible. Unfortunately I don’t know/recall the details of what effect that karma has in practice. Still, it makes me wonder if it might encourage karma farming by some users.