I’m not good at identifying species, so I’m trying to contribute by adding annotations to observations in my area.
Should leaf-mines be annotated as “Cannot be determined” in dead / alive? What about an egg or a gall? (I suppose that if they’re all “Cannot be determined”, there may less value in adding a “Dead or alive” annotation because filtering can be done more effectively based on “Evidence of presence: Leaf mine” etc.)
If someone has taken a transmitted light photo to show the larva inside, like this, then “Alive” seems useful:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/316871077
Some leaf mines can only be determined to species by seeing the larva itself (color, orientation in the leaf, presence/absence of head capsule, etc.) so having some of them annotated as “Alive” could help someone find the ones that show a live larva. If no insect is visible, then I’d just skip the Alive/Dead annotation, as the Evidence of Presence isn’t an organism, so there’s nothing there to determine the alive-ness of.
And I’d only use “dead” for one where the mine contains a desiccated larva that can be seen in the images, like this:
The distinction between alive and dead is probably not relevant to a leaf mine record. The key feature to record is whether the mine is “tenanted” or “vacated”. This is important for phenology studies. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a field in iNaturalist to capture this specific attribute of a leaf mine. “Alive” might be interpreted as tenanted, but “dead” is not the same as vacated. “Cannot be determined” is a bit of a dead end.
I do not recommend using “cannot be determined” in any occasion, not only for mines. This is because it cannot be corrected (unless the voter themselves will correct or remove it). If you cannot determine, it does not necessarily mean that no one can. 
And if you can, but that “cannot be determined” is already in effect, it can be frustrating.
Yeah, looking through all the obs from my state with “cannot be determined” selected, most of them don’t contain an entire organism (molts, tracks, feathers, nests, etc.) and of the ones that do show an organism, it’s either very clearly alive or very clearly dead- but there’s no way to correct the annotation. I would personally reserve “cannot be determined” for cases where there’s an organism present, but it’s difficult to tell if it’s alive or not, like a snail shell that may or may not contain a live snail, or an unhatched egg that may or may not still be viable.
I’d agree with this. I’d suggest to leave this annotation for the observer themselves to decide. It does not add much useful information beyond what is already there in the absence of an annotation.
Agree with others here: don’t worry about the other annotations unless you have clear evidence. It’s not necessary to fill out each annotation.
I prefer to annotate for dead or alive, if there’s clear evidence, for two reasons.. Ive heard before that some filter out dead obs. to avoid any potentially gory scenes and in the case for someone who may be researching causes of death or predation it may be useful. Make no assumptions and if you can’t be certain it’s better to leave un-annotated rather than set to ‘Can Not be Determined’..
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