A general search for "pw" indicates that it's used in more than one way, either as a domain name or as the name of a service/server name, with both usages appearing in email addresses.

A search for "block email senders" gets a wholebunchahits that seem to indicate that different email providers use rather variable methods for specifying how to block stuff, and that regardless of who handles your email the programs you use can also affect what you need to enter to block what you intend to get rid of.

An email address has three distinct parts to it, but in the search results different people call the different parts by different names, some of which make vague sense while others appear to be based on hallucinatons of things seen by persons living in worlds other than (most of) the rest of us.

This is "community forum support" at work (Microsoft's primary method for providing user help since they deleted their Knowledge Base to try to kill Win98. It's also used by others, seldom successfully).

An email address in it's most general form consists of THREE names in a fairly specific sequence, separated by "standard markers:"

"user_name AT service DOT domain"

The user_name is sometimes called the "account name" since you usually need to set up an account with that name at the "service" that makes your connections for you.

Theoretically, you would be able to block a "user_name" (example might be: "molester@*.*") so that any person with that name would go to junk mail regardless of what service it came from, so molester@gmail.com AND molester@google.com would both be blocked (or anyone using the name "molester" from any mail service). Whether this would work depends mainly on the rules set up by the service you use, but may also be affected by what program(s) you use for your mail.

You also should be able to block any service. The exact form for this might be something "*@gmail.com" although the exact way you need to enter it may vary. If a way is given to do it, this would mean that NO MAIL from anyone using gmail should get to your inbox.

Prevously, the "domain names" had fairly specific meanings. Several "general" domain names were common. A .com was an "open" name to be used by anyone for "commercial" business, .org was a "restricted" domain name that meant the service was had non-profit owner. For the most part, you can no longer rely on these to tell you what kind of people sent something.

A separate set of domain names may indicate a "country" where the service operates, like .uk or .us etc.

Several additional "kinds" of domain names are now in use, and for some of them there is almost no formal regulation of which ones can be used by what people.

The example email address in the first post:

KatieG@ailinly.pw

means that someone named "KatiG" with an account at a service named "ailinly" sent something from domain .pw.

Note that .com DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE ADDRESS so blocking "pw.com" would only divert mail from anyone using a service provider named pw located within the .com domain. Some search results indicate that there may actually be a "pw.com" and that there also are "severalsomethings.pw," but they would be entirely different things.

The "instruction" for how to block mail from "pw" probably meant mail from a person using the name "pw" but the objectionable mail was coming from "someone from the .pw domain."

You should be able to block individual usernames, by entering the full address as "name@service.domain."

You should be able to block ALL MAIL from a particular service by entering something "like service.domain."

It would generally seem a little drastic to block everything from a domain, but might be be something you'd want to do, by entering, in this case, something like ".pw."

You may or may not need to include a "*" to indicate "anything that fits in this place."

If you can distinguish between a "person sending it" and the "service they send from" and the "domain it comes from" it shouldn't be difficult to follow the instructions given by your provider/program, but if you mix them up 'taint gonna work.

John