My merging “logic” - if i see that works between artists share the same IPI number, then i consider them to be merged in one entity, though i know that on MB there is a rule/style about different artist projects, which i honestly dont fully understand and support. What do you think in this current case?
I wouldn’t say there are clear rules about how to handle this. The guidelines are closer to “try to follow the artist’s intent”, which usually involves guesswork. From https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Artist:
In some cases, a person (or, more rarely, a group) can perform under multiple names that they actually consider different projects, and not just alternative names. In that case, you should add each artist separately. If they’re a person, a separate legal name artist should be added, and linked to all performance names with the is person (“performs as”) relationship. In this case, do not add legal name aliases to the performance names. For groups, just link each group to their members.
In this case, the main page at https://www.benmacdougall.com/ seems to only list “Ben MacDougall” releases, but https://www.benmacdougall.com/music.html lists some of the recordings from the “Benjamin Andrew James MacDougall” artist (“A Fantastic Fable”, “Promise of Hope”, “Elimination”, etc.).