This post is a sequel to: Collaboration or acknowledgment?
The following has come to my attention. A senior mathematician (let us call him or her Alice) suggested a problem to a young mathematician (Bobby) who proceeded to solve it on her own and wrote up the result. Bobby agreed to let Alice be listed as a coauthor, but Alice also insisted to include her PhD student (Charlotte) as a coauthor because they were thinking about the same problem, despite the fact that Alice and Charlotte did not even have partial results. Is there a way for Bobby to manage such a situation without creating conflict?
Edit: Bobby had no problem with Alice joining her as a coauthor for the reasons mentioned by Igor Rivin below (I include you as a coauthor, you write me a good recommendation). Thus, the credit was unfairly diluted by including Charlotte who had not contributed. Igor Rivin also mentioned that this is not a new phenomenon, which I am surprised to hear.