On Diff we use the Featured Image WordPress feature for displaying an image on the homepage, in category/tag archives, search results, and when an article is shared elsewhere on the internet (social media). Most of the time this featured image is also used and embedded as the first image at the top of a post. Sometimes though you want the featured image to not be the top most image, but one later down in the post. Some times you don't want an image at all included in the post. We almost always want a Featured post though. This flexibility works well as we see authors with diverse backgrounds and experience submitting posts to the blog.

However, we discovered a hole in our attribution. When a featured image is set for a post, but not embedded in the post, no attribution is easily found.

For example, this blog post uses this image as its featured image, but the image itself is not included in the post.

When visiting the homepage of Diff you do see the attribution, as the image appears to the reader.

When you share the image elsewhere, or do not notice the attribution on the homepage, archive, or search results, it is confusing.

We need to rework how the attribution metadata is added to images uploaded to Diff's media library. A hook should be created that detects what the posts featured image is, and if that image is not already present in the post (via embedding) then it should be added to the list of photo attributions at the bottom of the page.