QUOTE(Eppur si muove @ Tue 4th September 2012, 4:34pm)
And just like on Wikipedia, meatpuppetry is also a problem. A friend fo mine found a book that plagiarised his website and also Wikipedia. One of the positive reviews of the book was written by a colleague of the "author" who appears in the acknowledgments. Said work colleague has blogged about plagiarism but his scruples about that do not apply when recommending a friend's book.
Adam Smith suggested that the reason why 18th century poets formed cabals to destroy each other and that scientists did not is because the poets had far more to gain and lose. The people didn't really care about the scientists and it was immune.
If you look closely, he had a strong point about human nature. When you can gain popularity/power/money, or whatever else, humans tend to join together to screw each other in any way possible. It no longer becomes merit but greed. I strongly believe in Confucius's meritocracy. However, Confucius was consistently chased out of different kingdoms because of how it prevented certain people from gaining power who do not deserve it.