Using wildcards in WP_Query with exclusions

No. Wildcards of that sort don’t work, and there’s no “category_exclude” parameter to begin with.

You can use category__not_in for queries though, like so:

// this excludes categories with ID's of 1, 2, and 3
query_posts(array(
'category__not_in' => array(1,2,3),
));

of that sort? is there another way? sorry the ID’s could be anything

It is possible to directly alter the MySql query string via the posts_* filters. You really need to have a good grip on MySql syntax though.

Or could build an array of the category IDs you don’t want with Function_Reference/get_categories, then use the format Otto suggested.

but users will be adding categories later

apljdi sounds like the best idea so far