There’s a disconnect between those who work hands on with stray and feral cat populations and other people, when it comes to how we perceive outdoor cats. I think the name of the post even points to that. “Domestic cat” is the common name but many of those “domestic” cats are feral or stray, so they are wild. It’s not a versus because they aren’t mutually exclusive ideas in this case when it comes to cats. Many people like to assume it’s a cat, so it is probably owned or it must be owned, especially if it is not aggressive or fearful. Thats an outdated way of looking at the cat crisis most of the world faces. People who work with stray and feral cat populations often must have the perspective that a cat outdoors, no collar, unneutered, unvaccinated and no microchip, is a form of stray or feral, even if it is socialized. That must be the assumption to properly counter and prevent the spread of disease and to prevent their populations from exploding. It gets messy in terms of deeming them wild or not on iNaturalist because you just see images and that’s it. There’s not always context to help clarify the situation. What about instances where it’s unclear if a cat is owned but it’s outside with no collar? Well, for people who work with trapping and neutering stray and feral cats, that is a cat we see as being stray for the time being because we have to trap it to find out more about it. But for people who live in the neighborhood and see the cat walking around regularly, they may just see it as a friendly neighborhood cat who must be owned and must have came from somebody’s house. Either one could be right.
This is especially relevant in regions where “street cats” are the most prevalent form of strays. Places like Greece, many South American countries, many African countries, many Asian countries, are overrun with these “street cats”, that are unowned cats, but often friendly and do receive forms of assistance like food, water, even shelter or medical assistance sometimes. That is a type of stray cat, and a stray cat is a wild animal, even when it’s a domestic species. It’s even said that stray animals should be marked as wild in the iNaturalist’s help section about the DQA.
Stray cats and feral cats are not the same, but strays should also be considered wild. As for OP’s observations specifically, I disagree that some of those observations are of captive cats because they appear to be street cats, which like I’ve explained are a form of stray cat, which is a form of wild animal on the site. I’ve explained this before and can accept not everybody agrees, which is why I did skip over the cat observations I identified today from OP, because I realize we just don’t agree on what makes a cat stray / a street cat / wild. Which is okay and I understand because it can be messy and different people feel different ways.
However I think it is at the end of the day inaccurate to consider street cats and stray cats as captive just because they are a domesticated species. It literally says in the iNaturalist help section that stray animals should be marked as wild. That feels extremely straightforward. There’s nothing exclusive to stray and feral cats that cannot be applied to some other animal that’s accepted as wild, which other users have pointed out in the thread already. It also seems illogical to me for stray animals to not be wild but having it be accepted that loose pets that have ran away or are abandoned should be marked as wild. Strays should always be marked as wild.