Speaking only for myself here…
Given that the prime directive of iNaturalist is to
…and that, arguably, people who tend not have the privilege of ready access to “wild” nature are among those we most want to reach…
…I am reluctant to get very heavy-handed with marking captive/cultivated things, and prefer to take them case-by-case, at least until the tools for dealing with them can be improved so as not to be so discouraging to new users who may be in the aforementioned demographic.
To take two extreme ends of the spectrum (and acknowledging all the nuances in between)…
If I see a potted plant from a relatively established user, located in what appears to be a rural but fairly affluent setting, where access to wild nature should not be an issue, then I will mark it captive/cultivated, no questions asked.
On the other hand, if I see the same potted plant from a newer user, located in the depths of Los Angeles or Beijing or Mumbai, etc., I’m not even going to try to explain to the user what the difference is between captive/cultivated and wild at that stage, much less admonish them to focus on wild things. Instead, I’ll add some level of ID if I can (or failing that, just mark it “reviewed”) and move on, hoping someone more capable with cultivated species will find it and provide further help.
I will be much less reluctant to mark the second example as captive/cultivated if iNaturalist can ever implement some of the suggestions that have been offered in the past:
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Stop applying the semi-dismissive term “casual” to captive/cultivated observations that otherwise have all the data attributes equivalent to a “research-grade” or “needs-id” wild observation.
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Just call them “captive/cultivated,” and allow them to be filtered separately from data-deficient “casual” observations.
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With the ability to filter them separately, allow identifiers interested in helping with captive/cultivated things to see them in their “needs-id” or “research-grade” streams if they opt-in via the filters, using the same community-ID levels currently applied to “wild” observations. The default would still be to exclude captive/cultivated observations from people’s ID streams.
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Continue to exclude them from GBIF and other data partners who don’t want them.
Regarding #2 and #3 above, the current Identify filter does have a Captive/Cultivated checkbox, and when selected it automatically switches the “Quality Grade” filter to “Casual” to match. But of course, it does not allow application of current community-ID filters (needs-id, research-grade), making it harder for identifiers of captive/cultivated things to focus on the observations they want to identify.
All of this said, I am not suggesting that iNaturalist abandon its emphasis on observations of wild nature. Just suggesting that it may be “shooting itself in the foot” with it’s current treatment of captive/cultivated observations and the newer observers who most often create them.