Steve Bennett wrote:
It's hard to know how similar is too similar. I tend to think that the more images, the better, and if there are even a few more details in one than the other, it may be worth it. Particularly in the case of an article with very little text, you can get a surprising amount of information just by including several photos. I don't know about "a thousand words", but often several hundred or so.
I quite agree with this. Accordingly, I would endorse a movement whereby short articles are allowed to accrue a gallery of images at the bottom (optionally with the "show/hide" links to keep frenetic clickers happy). Nevertheless, those images should eventually be incorporated into the article as it grows. Remember that people primarily come to Wikipedia for encyclopedic articles. If someone were to specifically look for pictures, well, that's what the links to Commons are there for.
Timwi