http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/arts/09PHYS.html
More on the Bogdanov affair:
Igor’s thesis had many things [referee] Dr. Jackiw didn’t understand, but he found it intriguing. “All these were ideas that could possibly make sense,” he said. “It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That’s all I ask.”
In the letters section a day later, two physics professors protest a little too much: (1) journals (especially those journals) don’t count anymore; and (2) it doesn’t matter if journals sometimes publish rubbish because nowadays it’s too hard to tell what’s rubbish and what’s not.
(According to ISI’s Journal Citation Reports, Classical and Quantum Gravity is ranked 10th out of 66 “multidisciplinary” physics journals in its “impact factor”; the Annals of Physics is ranked 11th—so I don’t think it fair to say that these are obscure.)