Preface: I was experiencing issues for a bit but there has been a change, so I wanted to report my findings. I will try to explain this as thoroughly as I can, so I am sorry if it does not make sense. I am posting on this relatively new alt who appears to be affecting things. Both characters involved are on Lightbringer-Alliance.
Background: In late March, I changed my main’s name from Axis to Tinyclaws to mix things up. I then created this monk and named her Axis because I still wanted to keep the name. I am not super active on the forums; I usually just lurk/read/react and sometimes comment. But now, I see that all my forum activity is tied to this alt who did not exist when most of the activity happened. That activity happened on my druid when her name was Axis. It seems the activity is tied to the name-server and not the specific character.
Problem: The first issue I noticed was after the name change/new monk creation. Here on the forums, the posting “character” still showed Axis as the name, but the character info did not display anything, like class or portrait. Instead of my character’s face, it showed the basic WoW logo/W icon. I tossed it up to being a name change issue or a delay with the Armory recognizing the change. Once I cleared my browsing history today to resolve another issue, I noticed that there was a character portrait showing at the top right (below my BattleTag) instead of the W icon. I thought it was strange that the portrait was my monk so I clicked on it and saw all the activity that belonged to my druid (even the join date that claims this character, who was created in March or April 2020, somehow joined the forums in 2018). When I change the posting character and look at my druid, it has zero forum activity and even joined today.
Reason for the report: While the activity display issue isn’t the end of the world, my level 29 monk is now listed as the actual poster for thread replies that I posted on my druid, before the name change and before this monk existed. Threads like my druid’s raiding guild recruitment (this alt is in a different guild), my druid’s experience with mount count achievements, and my druid’s feedback on the druid forums, for example.
Kinda related: Another thought I wanted to point out is if I had changed my druid’s name and then someone else created a character named Axis. Theoretically, my posts could have just appeared under their name if the system is truly only going by name-server. If it is not going by name-server, then I’m not sure why else it would have kept all activity to the character named Axis instead of the character who did the posts and no longer goes by that name.
TLDR: I changed my main’s name, rolled a new character with her previous name, and now all my forum activity is tied to the new character instead of the character it was done on.