Celia Cyanide said:
I hardly think that's an excuse. Do they think writers don't have to worry about recieving bad attachments, just because they don't reject anyone? When a lot of people get an email from anyone that says, "see attachment" and nothing else, it looks like spam, not to mention a virus carrying attachment.
Of course it's an excuse. Writers don't have to worry about receiving bad attachments from a known source. Agents and editors do. The simple fact of the matter is that you can check the source of an e-mail before you open it, and if it's from an agent or editor there is pretty much zero chance of it containing a virus. And if you're really worried, you can open the attachment in notepad. Or you can run a virus check on a single attachment before opening it. None of this is true for agents and editors. Even when they check the source, there's no way of knowing whether or not a virus has been sent.
An agent or an editor who accepts attachments will almost certainly have hundreds or thousands to open, and very few have the time to do this, or to verify so many sources. It simply isn;t feasible for most agents and editors. This increases their risk hundreds or thousands of times above what your risk is.
And they really don't need an excuse. If you don't want to read the attachment, don't open it.
