SERVE is for  individual users. There are hundreds of  served off entries
in a typical LISTSERV. If wildcards  were accepted, they would have to be
processed sequentially, whereas now they  are processed through a hashing
table. The SERVE list is also scanned  a lot more often than the the list
posting  filters. Allowing  wildcards  would slow  down large  LISTSERVs.
Instead you can define a global  list filter in 1.8b with the FILTER_ALSO
variable. This  supports wildcards of course  and is added to  the system
default filter.
 
  Eric