websta

Thanks, Otto. The solution worked for me also.

FYI: This plugin (and perhaps others) will take the Attached Images and change them into Featured Images: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-add-thumbnail/

IMPORTANT: For this to work, you need to set “Auto-approve any files” to “yes.”

Note that this is working for me with the following shortcode:

[fu-upload-form category=”1″ post_type=”post” form_layout=”post_image”]

FWIW, Background and Explanation: I renamed the Uncategorized category to what I wanted this category called, which is where I want these posts to go. SO these posts go into Admin area > Posts > Manage UGC [your email links won’t go here automatically; they’ll send you to the media library’s Manage UGC page — not the same place.] So when someone uploads an image and text, I go to Posts > Manage UGC, and change the post from Private to Public; with that Auto-approve setting, the images are automatically attached to the post, and with that plugin the Attached Image is automatically made into the Featured Image for the post.

TL;DR? Load plugin linked above, set auto-approve files to Yes, and check uploads under Post>Manage UGC, where you’ll change it from Private to Public. That’s it.

Thanks again, Rinat!