Let's not forget about self-sustaining communities:
15 erasmus friends cite each other, and peer review each other.
In few years, one/two/ten of them will be also editors of more or less decent journals (Impact factor usually between 4 and 12). Most of them will publish 10/15 papers per year, on their companion journal. Which is a good throughput for having founds.
And if one is caught saying bullshit, 14 "experts" will protect him.
I've been in the community 5yrs now. And I've seen a little bit of everything.
This is my favorite one so far:
A, B, C write paper, submit to his pal D.
D appoints E,F,G as reviewers.
C, and E were in school together.
F was a C student.
G sends the paper back to C to auto-review it.
C cannot be bothered, so delegates the review back to A.
A reviews his first name paper.
(poor phd student B doesn't even know)
15 erasmus friends cite each other, and peer review each other.
In few years, one/two/ten of them will be also editors of more or less decent journals (Impact factor usually between 4 and 12). Most of them will publish 10/15 papers per year, on their companion journal. Which is a good throughput for having founds.
And if one is caught saying bullshit, 14 "experts" will protect him.
As an example see Stellacci story here http://raphazlab.wordpress.com/