 | This page is part of the Military history WikiProject's online Academy, and contains instructions, recommendations, or suggestions for editors working on military history articles. While it is not one of the project's formal guidelines, editors are encouraged to consider the advice presented here in the course of their editing work. |
A picture tells a thousand words.
This is a well-known proverb, but in the context of Wikipedia, it likely is not very accurate, and perhaps less so in the context of military history articles.
Wikipedia aims to be scholarly, preferring references and opinions from academics and their works rather than the relative tattle and sensationalism of newspapers, or less reliable sources, such as gossipy or "entertaining" magazines.
Nevertheless, while pictures are not necessary for a higher status when not available due to Wikipedia's desire for free content, they are generally highly useful if they can be created by the user, particularly graphs, maps and illustrations that can help the reader visualise things. They can be extremely useful in summarising and visualising information in a way that cumbersome literary descriptions cannot.
While there are many benefits of appropriately utilised images, there are also many pitfalls to be avoided in utilising images on Wikipedia.
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