It's not as frequent as it once was, but it's also not all that rare. Someone stumbles onto a wonderful story (or perhaps a particularly sad one) and can't resist passing it on - usually to his or her entire list of email contacts. Sometimes I try to "educate" the culprit in the etiquette of email restraint (and sometimes I happily discover that someone, via a "reply all" has done so before me). Many years ago I responded personally to someone who habitually passed on just about everything that came his way, suggesting that if it took me two minutes to verify that we're dealing with a myth, he might do the same thing before sending out mail to his entire mailing list. He responded that he didn't have the time for that, and I responded with a request to be removed from his contacts list.