In addition to my work as an editor for DMTCS, I receive frequent referee requests from other journals. Unfortunately, I receive many more than I can handle, so I started keeping track of how many I receive each year, how many I take on, and the cumulative ratio of my completed referee assignments divided by the number of papers I've submitted to journals myself (weighted by the reciprocal of the number of co-authors). Estimating that journals send each submitted paper to about 2 referees, this ratio should be around 2 for the average mathematician. My ratio is currently over 4, which probably explains why I feel so overwhelmed with refereeing. I hope to slowly reduce this ratio to be to closer to 2. So please, do not take it personally if I turn down some of your referee requests.
| Year | Number of referee requests | Completed referee assignments | Cumulative ratio completed assignments / submitted papers |
|---|---|---|---|
| <=2007 | 31 | 27 | 2.13 |
| 2008 | 18 | 10 | 2.78 |
| 2009 | 18 | 10 | 2.97 |
| 2010 | 33 | 20 | 3.87 |
| 2011 | 17 | 12 | 3.54 |
| 2012 | 24 | 10 | 3.41 |
| 2013 | 19 | 7 | 3.27 |
| 2014 | 27 | 18 | 3.73 |
| 2015 | 13 | 8 | 3.72 |
| 2016 | 29 | 23 | 4.16 |
| 2017 | 22 | 14 | 4.25 |
| 2018 | 26 | 12 | 4.17 |
| 2019 | 38 | 12 | 4.24 |
| 2020 | 33 | 16 | 4.47 |
| 2021 | 32 | 13 | 4.34 |