Data from editors on 'the referee crisis'?

A reader writes in:

I have closely followed the discussion of Helen’s recent essay on the peer review system.  It was disheartening to hear about Helen’s experience as an associate editor.  If anything, it makes me appreciate the work editors go through even more.  Thank you for that.

On the other hand, Ben Bradley’s post seems to paint a very different picture... I think the community would benefit from more data.  So, I am floating the following idea: a new post soliciting relevant information (such as # of accepted requests, # of declined requests) from journal editors.

I think this is a great idea. If any readers are journal editors and have this kind of information available, please feel free chime in down below in the comments section: how many referee requests do you need to send out, on average, per referee who accepts an invitation?

Comments

[Brad]

I highly doubt that editors will answer this, and for good reason. I do not think this is the sort of forum for them to be disclosing such information. But, with that said, I can give some information that is relevant to understanding the situation (and others can follow suit). Then, aggregating the information, we can get some sense of how often journals must send out invitations to review in order to get 2 referees.
I just saw my Review History for Synthese - this is data from 2009 to now (anyone can access their own report). Since 2009, I have been invited to review 50 manuscripts. I have agreed to review 25 of those. So, with respect to me, the editors have a success rate of 50%. I do not think this supports any claim of there being a crisis.
Why do not decline the invitations to review papers? Two of the main reasons are: (i) I have already reviewed the paper for another journal, and (ii) I know the author, and doubt that I could be an impartial judge.

[The Expanding Circle (of referees)]

Hi Brad -- check out this recent post on Daily Nous (https://dailynous.com/2022/02/28/call-for-refereeing-data-from-journal-editors/ ). Editors are asked to email data to dailynouseditor@gmail.com and then Justin will aggregate. Re Synthese: I've had a very similar experience. Many requests per year (4-5) and I accept more than 50% of them.