The citation and H-index are qualifications every researcher is working towards. In recent decades it has been noticed that some are extremely luckier than others. They don't need to work hard as most of us, they are sitting in positions where people oblige them for favours by offering authorship.
It is noticed that there are some papers with 6 - 10 authors many of them from different organizations/countries, what sort of intellectual input is possible by all of them in a 4000-word paper? How can someone write a scientific paper every 3 to 5 days?
The authorship guidelines are clear about who should be an author. Still, there are no measures to ensure these guidelines are followed except a consent form and those greedy for free authorship certainly don't shy away from signing these undertakings.
A more serious trend has started when some affluent countries have authors who are ready to pay and join a paper or pay for APC on condition that they will be one of the authors.
There is an eminent need for these issues to be addressed and a regulatory body needs to be created where these gift, guest and ghost authorship issues are reported and those papers should be taken down to inculcate fair practices.
I doubt that it will be possible to establish such a regulatory body. Science does not have any international regulations, and it would not be possible to make an agreement between all publishers. See also these related discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Adding_scientists_to_a_paper_because_the_added_author_will_pay_APC_charges/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/I_am_looking_for_authors_who_enter_directly_with_me_without_doing_anything_only_paying_the_Journals_fees_in_Scopus_or_Clarivate/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_any_one_to_defend_Honorary_forced_authorship_if_not_why_we_practice_it/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_Gift_authorship/1
Dear Wolfgand the publishers can develop a mechanism to report such incidences and if they start retracting these papers it is possible to have some sort of discipline.
Disciplines vary widely interns of how many co-authors are included on a publication. For example, I sometimes do work that gets published in medical fields, where is not uncommon to have 5+ authors on a relatively short article.
Some journals require statements about the "contributions" of each author, so rather than trying to set up a regulatory body, you should encourage any journals where you have influence to adopt this systems.
Finally, I am not aware of any example of someone getting co-authorship simply for paying an APC. I am sure this could happen, but I see no evidence that it is a frequent problem.
David, we are all aware of the importance and need of a team. But here we are talking of authors who sometimes are not even in the discipline and by virtue in certain positions. How does a person who is an editor/associate editor of a few journals get co-authorship in 50 - 100 papers a year? I can tell you it's common in the region we work that people get authorship by covering APC. We see something much different in the developing world, and I am sure most people who have not been through this can't even imagine. But it is a serious issue that needs attention before thugs take over.
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