my impression is that inside these niches, people know each other personally, or are only separated by a small number of degrees. reputations form, etc.
so any paper they end up reading, most likely does not have completely unknown authors from completely unknown institutions.
without this information, yeah, it'd be harder to judge. surely anyone can find out anyone else's (using full name and institution) academic background online today, but it'd not be so easy to judge it without being an insider.