There’s was an old thread and rather popular thread on subraces on MMO Champ. They pretty much took a lot of the fan concepts from there when they decided to make Allied Races for BfA. Mechagnomes or referred to as Junker Gnomes in that thread.
So it was something community inspired. I think however it would been much more popular if they were fully robotic. Which is in my opinion something they can still fix in the future.
