This is just one aspect of the corruption or weaknesses that exist in the research and peer-reviewed journal publication system. There are several problems that are largely ignored. There is fudging and falsification of the actual research. There is “piggybacking” of adding authors who did not contribute to the scholarship to the articles. There is exploitation of research worker bees by senior scientists. There is manipulation, intentional bias, and obnoxious elitism and gatekeeping (common, and it suppresses advancements) in the peer review system. There is even flat-out falsification of publication records by some researchers. I was informed of an “scholar” who simply copied an entire paper published in a highly reputable journal and published it under his or her name in another journal. Then there are a lot of journals that have uncertain peer-reviewer quality—some reviewers can barely read the papers but barf up a review and other reviewers provide ridiculous reviews that actually make the article worse. The process is quite weak.
Great comment.
On the other side there are editors who only are doing it for their dossier and cv.
I am not sure the process is so weak as opposed to the people being corrupt and incompetent.