This suggestion for the observation fields which I have no idea if there is another topic about the suggestions for those but here we go. I was just filling in observation fields on other’s observation posts and made a mistake. I made a observation field on mushroom characteristics/interaction behavior (note that I used the post’s comment for filling out the fields always when working on other’s posts) and filled it up on the observation that I was working on. However, the specimen target in the observation was actually lichen. My concern is that posted observation fields on observations cannot be edited by the creator or anyone else. My suggestion is to make filled observation fields editable on observation posts pages.
Observations fields are easily edited. If you click on the name of the observation field, you will get a pop-up with various options (edit, delete, see all observations with this field, etc.). It is also possible to edit the value of observation fields that you did not enter yourself.
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But if that was entered by the observer, they probably prefer it to stay as they chose to word it.
I wasn’t recommending changing other people’s observation fields willy-nilly, just pointing out that it is not the case that these fields cannot be edited by the creator or anyone else: it is possible to edit fields regardless of who made them (in contrast to annotations).
I have occasionally edited an observation field that someone had added to their observation if the value they added was clearly wrong (e.g. labelling a female as a male, or the wrong plant being visited by a pollinator). Editing an observation field generates a notification, so it is arguably more transparent than many other actions that affect other people’s observations, like adding annotations or marking DQA items.
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Oh did not know that… thank you for clarifying that!
True which leads to another suggestion to have a profile link or at least a history of edits on the observation field would be extremely helpful for everyone
It has come up on the forum before, that people were surprised to discover that others could edit their careful observation field.
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In Aotearoa, we have the very common tree fuchsia, which has female trees, and hermaphroditic trees. Definitely no way to record that on iNat. There also some conifers that can be male, or female, or hermaphroditic. Aotearoa also has some rather high rates of dioecious plants (13% of all species), with some being very common species.
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Hi, re:
I just wanted to point out that annotations are on the app and can be edited there as well. In the app, if you click on an observation to open it, then scroll down below the map area, you’ll see Data Quality, and below that Annotations, then Metadata. I’ve found that while it’s uploading, if you’re in grid view, then you open the previous observation (the one physically next to it in grid view), you can swipe right to slide into the still-uploading-observation and set the annotations. (Sometimes people are so fast with identifying they will get to this before you, if you wait for the upload to complete…so, when I discovered that I could “swipe” in, I made that my normal method.) Hope this helps. (-:
Is this on the old iNaturalist app or the new iNat Next app? I tried that on both but can’t seem to find the annotations. Can you post a screenshot of your view?
Oh I have an iPhone which doesn’t have the annotations unlike Android phones app
Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize it was different depending on type of phone. Wish I could have provided something more helpful.
Yeah no worries I wish the Android and iPhone iNaturalist apps could be the same no matter the phone type
Agree!
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That’s the plan.
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I disagree - observations fields can be used for this (and technically tags, too, though that is probably less useful).
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Regarding the “Established” annotation. I can see that it would be useful for plants, as well as herps, for what we call waifs – plants accidentally transported by humans, 1st & 2nd generation garden escapes, etc. But I have a problem with it.
Please, please, make “Established” the last in the list of possible annotations. After all, the only possible response is “No” so we will very rarely be able to use it. Also, having it in the middle of the list for herps but not for other groups means that I click on it when intending to click the next lower button because my finding things on the screen is so very spatial (and I can’t be the only one who find things this way, whether you do so or not).
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I’m sure that many people find things that way. For some people, you can hide things from them by putting the thing down a foot or two away from where they normally put it. I could see this being problematic even for the plant phenology annotations: if you choose something other than “No flowers or fruits,” a new flowering annotation tab appears where a moment ago was the leaf annotation tab. If we took a poll on how many people clicked on the wrong tab for this reason, I wonder what the result would be?
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