Andreas Kolbe wrote:
NPOV policy as written would require us to do the same, yes.
The community obviously doesn't share your interpretation of said policy.
It's not a question of interpretation; it is the very letter of the policy.
It most certainly is a matter of interpretation. If the English Wikipedia community shared yours, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
In this context, you view images as entities independent from the people and things depicted therein (and believe that our use of illustrations not included in other publications constitutes undue weight).
Conversely, the community doesn't treat "images of x" as a subject separate from "x" (unless the topic "images of x" is sufficiently noteworthy in its own right). If an image illustrates x in a manner consistent with what reliable sources tell us about x, it clears the pertinent hurdle. (There are, of course, other inclusion criteria.)
Due weight and neutrality are established by reliable sources.
And these are the sources through which the images' accuracy and relevance are verified.
David Levy