[Other] Course in Cologne focusing on VMS

[Anton]

and I suspect most papers are not read, but only quoted

Oh that's generally true, and more than that, many papers are quoted without ever being seen.

I can hardly imagine that. After all, there could always be a discussion and you can not participate in it if you do not read the papers at all.

It is not about not reading at all, it is just that you do not read (some of) the papers that you quote. This is actually quite widespread when preparing literature reviews or descriptive/introduction sections. Like "as shown by NN in [xx]..." Everybody knows what was shown by NN in [xx], so you don't risk anything by asserting that without reading the paper or book [xx]. Another case is when the paper [xx] is not available. This implies more risk since you can be a bit mistaken about what was shown in [xx] and what was not, but you make an educated guess.

It should not be understood that I endorse this practice, but I have done that myself. Generally because I was poor and could not afford purchasing all the papers I was in need of, so I often had to deal with abstracts only.