I upload my obs.
Then I do open each one - for projects and annotations etc.
But I have few obs.
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I created a project titled Bird Pellets to track them until / if an annotation is created for them.
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I agree. (Sorry if my post sounded like Iām fine with the 2-steps needed for annotating. I actually came to the forum yesterday to see what options there are for observations of mycelium, and my search results included this thread. I decided to go down the rabbit hole a little and post that reply, in case other Android users reading here werenāt aware of being able to annotate in-app.) I agree that the way itās set up is very frustrating and probably stops people from annotating. I upload using the app and I do then go back in and annotate each of my observations, and find it annoying, and wish we could annotate up front. Even more frustrating is finding that sometimes, the annotation doesnāt save properly after taking the time to do it. /-:
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Can we get an āestablishedā annotation to be the opposite of the ānot establishedā annotation? The main use case of this would be to fill in the annotation for more obscure, not well-known established populations where people will frequently mark them ānot establishedā without doing research.
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No, I was just having a vapor lock between the ears. Iāve seen the discussions about āorganismā being acceptable for audio (not seen, but definately heard!); for some reason, though, the concept had stopped making sense when I posted that. Thank you for the reminder. 
For bryophytes there are no useful annotations; the sex annotation as it stands now is useless in most plants anyway (it really only comes into play for monoicous plants)
for plants (vascular) sex should be expanded to be more like:
monoecious, dioecious, hermaphrodite(perfect/synoecious, if that term is decided to be insensitive); maybe also gynomonoecy and andromonoecy
dioecious option should then expand to male/female/both
for bryophtes sex:
monoicous, dioicous, synoicous, autoicous (terms alre similar, but not the same as in vascular plants)
other annotations useful for bryophytes (liverworts, mosses and hornworts)
fertility yes/no, yes then expands to:
in all bryophytes:
presence of capsule yes/no
presence of antheridia yes/no
presence of archegonia yes/no
and in liverworts and hornworts:
presence of perianths yes/no
presence of male bracts yes/no (option only)
and further, again for all bryophytes:
presence of asexual propagules and/or associated structures yes/no
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I actually have annotated some of my bryophytes as male and female based on presence of antheridial heads vs. archegonia/attached sporophytes.
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As I said, it works for dioicous/dioecious plants, which are, however a vast minority; it also means little if it is not also acknowledged the plant is actually dioecious, so male/female is actually appilcable.
The male/female dichotomy is actually useful for dioecious vascular plants and dioecious bryophytes. I have also used it for a rhizomatous sedge (Carex macrocephala). Itās reproductive stems have either male or female flowers, not both, and the stems are often separated spacially.
Tempting though it is to make available all the words related to the arrangement of sexes in flowering plants, itās best not to, I think. Most people wonāt understand them and those of use to do often canāt apply them without some dissection.
I see your point, however
then it is best to remove the sex annotation in plants altogether, as it is completely meaningless now, and the same mistake of people not really checking the sex of the plants, still happens; the option of only male/female also probably convinces many people (likely the same group that would misuse the more specific words), while actually the vast majority of plant are synoecious (hermaphrodite), or monoecious, so male/femali is not applicable at all.
This is also the case for many animals. The opion sex not determinable is for those cases.
People also do not understand taxonomy, and we still are happy to let them participate and give corrections/guidance/information. The same can be done here, correcting the mistaken annotation is, to me, not different to correcting the mistaken species ID.
If annotations are to be useful, plant need a different system than animals, as they do not lead the same type of lives as animals.
I disagree strongly with removing the sex annotation entirely for plants. Itās useful for relatively few plants, but for them it is useful and Iād like to be able to search on this feature.
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I agree, this would not be the best solution
That is why I think it would be best to have the threeway distinction of mono-, di or synoicous, and male female only applicable to dioicous.
or at he very least add the options ābothā and/or ānot applicableā
āNot applicableā would be useful.
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It was hidden - for about 2 days - and promptly unhidden, due to vehement protest. Not perfect, but hidden is worse!
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I want to keep the sex annotations for plants. It would be helpful to add a third option like ānot applicable.ā Perhaps also add (dioecious plants) in parentheses after āmaleā and āfemale.ā
I think the annotations should apply to the plant as observed and that we rarely see enough information to annotate accurately for some of the more complicated arrangements of the sexes, e.g. āgynomonecious.ā Therefore, I do not see the value in making these options available.
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I agree, with adding the ānot applicableā option and adding the (dioecious) in parentheses.
(not applicable could aslo have in parenetheses monoecious/synoecious).
What do you think of adding bothe the option "not applicable (monoecious/synoecious) and also option āboth (dioeciousā)? The separate sexes of the plant often grow close together and both might be present on the observation photo, so this would be useful, I think?
I will admit gyno and androecy are too rare to be sensibly added (although some gynomonoecious asters are very common).
To follow along, if the terms are deemed too technical;
perhaps in all bryophytes we could have:
presence of propagules capsules/gemmae
sex male(dioicous)/female(dioicous)/not applicable (monoicous/synonicous)
and for liverworts:
sexual structure gametangiophore/perianth/bracts
and, as I noticed yesterday, for ferns:
presence of sexual structures sori/sporophylls/strobili
( i just want to add, determining gyno- and andromonoecy is (usually) not very complicated, if you see the flowers, you can usually tell. gynomonoecious just means it has both perfect as well as female flowers; it most often (but still rarely) occurs in Asteraceae (outer florets female, inner perfect), androecious mean male and perfect flowers, and is even rarer (except in some grasses, but here I will admit it would not be easy to see :)))
(In bryophytes sexuality is often an important character, so for a plant to be determinable, it would have to be observed, and I do not think it would be too much, but maybe for a starte the above option is enough)
Itās true that Asteraceae flowers can be gynomonoecious, but how does one tell from the photo? Generally one cannot tell! (in my opinion). The vast majority of iNat users canāt tell, anyway. One could add that annotation only by knowing that the species is gynomonoecious. That does not add information, and Iām not for it.
For ferns, choices like sori/sporophylls/strobili present/absent could be useful.
For bryophytes a gametophytes/sporophytes/both annotation would be useful. I find the male/female annotation useful for them sometimes.
I could agree for flowering plants that it could be useful to have male (dioecious), female (dioecious), and not applicable (monoecious/synoecious) would be good.
I was about to support having a āboth (dioecious)ā annotation, and then I remembered that this is like dealing with male and female animals in the same photo. If we want to annotate for both, we have to duplicate the observation and annotation one copy for each sex. It would not be unreasonable to have a ābothā annotation for animals, but iNaturalist very strongly wants to keep the situation simple by annotating for only one individual organism at a time, and thatās reasonable too.
I concede, gymno- and andro-monoecy are unnecessary ( to explain myself; the example I was thinking of, Fragaria moschata is andromonoecious, and you can spot the male flowers at the top of the inflorescence, becaus the ovary aborts and turns brown and stays much smaller https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/74847189. I could not come up with more good examples, so I must concede, this would be just confusing for most people, although for some asters (e.g. Erigeron alpinus) this is a semi-defining feature and something that should be observed in areas where similar synecious (Erigeron glabratus, which is very polymorphic and hard to tell apart except for this feature) species live; but this is again, I do not think a very common example of necessity.).
Thank you for taking time discuss this.
I hope the refined version will be implemented in some way; I noticed in the forum there was encouragment to annotate observations, so I started to do so, but noticed that there is not much available for plants (esp. ferns and bryophytes), while animals often have lot to annotate, plants have a lot less (basically just presence of fruits/flowers, and leaf color/presence). I might have been too eager in my effort to rectify this injustice and instance of plant blidness.
Do you think it would also be beneficial to add for plants, like it is in animals, a category:
evidence of presence: organism/leaf/fruit/seed?
This exist in animals (organism, track, scat ā¦)
I know I have some observations that are just fallen leaves and fruits; it may be useful for someone collecting just those type of information
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I think the most important parts of flowering plants are already covered with the options under flowers & fruits and under Leaves.