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<title>On Subject Tagging for W3C Lists</title>
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<h1 class="title">On Subject Tagging</h1>
<ul class="w3c_toc"><li class="toc_prefix">On this page → </li><li><a href="#listid">use of list-id header</a><span class="bullet"> • </span></li><li><a href="#reading">further reading</a></li></ul>
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<p class="tPadding">Occasionally we receive requests to modify the Subjects of messages as they
pass through our <a href="http://lists.w3.org/">mailing lists</a> to
add a list-specific prefix to the subject, e.g. for the
<code>www-html</code> list:
</p>

<blockquote class="lMargin"><p>
<code>
Subject: [www-html] HTML Improvement/Suggestion
</code>
</p></blockquote>

<p>We do not do this for our lists, for a number of reasons described below:</p>
</div>

<h2 id="listid">Use of List-id Header</h2>

<p>All messages distributed by our mailing lists are sent with a
<code>List-Id</code> header identifying the list, e.g. for
<code>www-html</code>:</p>
<blockquote><p>
<code>
List-Id: &lt;www-html.w3.org&gt;
</code>
</p></blockquote>
<p>This is the standard way to identify a mailing list, per <a
href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2919.txt">RFC 2919</a>. Users who wish to
filter mail from mailing lists into different mailboxes should do so using
this header. Mail clients should use this header and the related headers
specified by <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2919.txt">RFC 2369</a> to
allow users to filter, join and leave mailing lists with minimal
effort. If your mail client software does not provide these features,
please file a bug report with your software vendor.</p>
<p>The subject tagging practice was started years ago as a
workaround for mail clients that had no ability to filter mail into
different mailboxes. Fortunately, most modern email software has built-in
filtering capabilities, so it is rarely needed today.</p>
<p>The <code>Subject</code> of a message is one of the most important
parts of the message; to use much of it up with metadata that is already
better specified elsewhere in the message header is a waste of that
precious space, and this impacts everyone on the mailing list, not just
those with outdated mail clients.</p>
<p>Subject tagging is not a reliable way to identify mail from a mailing
list versus personal email, because if someone sends a personal reply off
the list, they will likely not remove the list tag from the subject and the
mail will get filtered to the recipient's list mailbox even though it was
not distributed by the list.</p>
<p>If certain users are unable to filter mail based on the
<code>List-Id</code> header, our list software adds a number of other
headers that may be used for filtering, e.g. <code>Sender</code>,
<code>X-Mailing-List</code>, <code>X-Loop</code>,
<code>Resent-Sender</code>, etc. However, these headers are less reliable
than the <code>List-Id</code> header, which will always be present, so
other headers should be used as a last resort.</p>

<p>Although we realize that there may still be some email clients that do
not make it straightforward to filter based on any of these headers, we
still do not provide a subject tagging facility for our lists because we
would rather see effort invested in getting mail software fixed to do the
right thing than provide workarounds that provide no incentive to do so, at
the expense of users whose mail clients already do the right thing.
</p>

<h2 id="reading">Further Reading</h2>

<ul class="show_items"><li>
<a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/tools/EmailClientForMailingListFiltering">W3C Wiki on Email Client Configurations for Filtering List Mail</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2919.txt">RFC 2919, List-Id: A
Structured Field and Namespace for the Identification of Mailing
Lists</a> (Mar 2001)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2369.txt">RFC 2369, The Use of URLs
as Meta-Syntax for Core Mail List Commands and their Transport through
Message Header Fields</a> (July 1998)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.nisto.com/listspec/#APPLICATION-SUPPORT">Applications
Supporting the List- Header Fields</a> (as of Aug 1998)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/qralston/writing/tagging-harmful/">Subject
Header Tagging Considered Harmful</a> by James Ralston</li>
</ul>
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