ietf-nntp Wildmats

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Charles Lindsey said:
> We certainly discussed this. Essentially, "U,!V" means "start with the
> universe U, and then eliminate from it everything in V". If the wildmat
> starts with a '!', then there is no initial universe.
> 
> But why not take '*' as the initial universe, you ask? Good question! All
> I remember is that we disallowed that for some reason. Perhaps Clive will
> remember.

Because it's equally arbitrary. We have to pick between two arbitrary
rules:

(1) Wildmats must not begin with "!".
(2) If a wildmat begins with "!", it is treated as if "*," was prefixed.

Number 1 appeared safer; note that if you want "*,!V", nothing is stopping
you writing "*,!V".

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