Let's Talk Annotations

This issue of ‘impossible’ annotations persisting is still present (and it is very annoying!) - is it likely that this will be fixed any time soon?

We have some annotations for leaves
We have - fruit or seeds
Cones for conifers is already on the list. On the very first line!

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Oh forgotten that was there silly me

Recently I was doing plant phenology annotations for Datura stramonium, and I noticed that this plant is one of those species that spreads its seeds by its fruit splitting open. I wondered if there was a name for the husks of the fruit that are left behind on the plant. This led to a quick google search which led me to the term dehiscent fruit. I think it could be useful to add this term to the plant phenology annotations because when in the year a plants fruit decides to split open and spread its seeds could be useful information for future researchers. What are your thoughts? Would this extra annotation just be clutter? Do you think this could be useful for people?

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I personally don’t know. Maybe move this topic to Feature Requests , though?

Another one that comes to mind is milkweeds

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I merged the above three posts into the existing discussion thread for Annotations.

On a side note, Feature Requests should be submitted specifically as those (we don’t generally move threads to the Feature Request category) because the template needs to be filled out.

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For ferns and poypodies, can we add the annotations for the spores, such as the drop down options go like this: young spore, mature spores, no live spores

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Could pellets be added to Evidence of Presence for birds?

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@bouteloua yes you can mark them individually, but if someone marks “no flowers or fruits”, then it is not possible to mark that there are flower buds.

A few years later but I would change it back to plant phenology.
As ribes2018 mentioned there are other important phenology phases that do not involved flowers, or any reproductive structure.
Flowering phenology to me only refers to whether there are open flowers or not, but I know others would consider “flowering” phenology to also include the phenology of flower buds or fruits.
Plant phenology is also just a more broad term and so it could overtime include other non-reproductive phenology phases such as “vegetative” or “leaf buds”, etc.

I like that. I’d like to see Song added as well. (Useful for crickets and frogs, too!)

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Isn’t “song” already implied by the existence of an audio file?

I believe other discussions have concluded that “organism” is an appropriate value for the “evidence of presence” for audio observations, even if this organism was heard rather than seen (the organism itself is there, it is just a question of whether we experienced it via sound waves or photons).

Or are you suggesting that there should be annotations for different types of vocalizations, similar to how sites like xeno-canto can indicate whether a recording contains a song, a flight call, a begging call, etc.?

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I suspect this is another iOS vs Android difference, so this may not help you, but you can annotate in the app, at least with Android. You just can’t do it until after your observation has been synced. If you open the observation after you sync it, you can scroll down to the annotation section. Here are screenshots showing what I see in the app:

scroll down…

scroll down again…

Yes. It is not possible on iOS currently, but I think it is a planned feature for iNat Next

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I think the problem, with apps and with using the website though a desktop computer, is that annotation is a separate step from posting. I’m all done uploading, and I’d have to open each observation again to annotate. So mostly I don’t. (Though I think annotating is important and I will come back and annotate later. Occasionally.)

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There is a way! https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/uk-hoverflies-syrphidae/journal/81762-adding-annotations-to-your-own-observations-when-uploading - although I can’t be sure of the specifics for plants, and it doesn’t work for some of the newer annotation types

Me too. If I spend time uploading a lot of observations, I don’t want to open them all again to annotate, although I often have good intentions of doing so.
I will make more of an effort for certain types of observations, however - like pollination interactions, or predation interactions, or for life stage of insects if they’re not adults.
I observe a lot of plants, and there seem to be too many possible annotations, and I don’t know which (if any) are the most important.

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More about observation fields which are mapped to Annotations (and can therefore be used during upload) here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-bulk-batch-annotate-your-own-observations/28729

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Thank you for posting this link.

Also, I’m glad there are people who think this is simple.