If this is how the placeholder has worked up to now, I don’t fully understand the reason to eliminate it in the new app instead of changing how it works.
The placeholder really only becomes an issue when it does not match an existing taxon and is entered as a text after upload that is easily overlooked/overwritten by other users. Since creating observations offline and syncing later is de facto a draft mode, why not introduce a mechanism during syncing/uploading that flags observations where no matching taxon can be found and requires the user to complete the information before proceeding?
Also, any plans to change one of the main concerns that started this thread, namely the obscurity of the button to add one’s own ID instead of a CV suggestion?