UniWiki:Manual of Style/Icons
For the purposes of this guideline, icons are any small images, including logos, crests, coats of arms, seals and flags.
The use of icons in Wikipedia encyclopedic project content, mainly lists, tables, infoboxes and navboxes can provide useful visual cues, but can also present a number of problems. Guidance on principal issues is summarized below, followed by more in-depth discussion of each. For purposes of this guideline, the term "icons" encompasses both small image files, typographic dingbats, and emojis.
Icons
Appropriate use
- For other uses, Wikipedia:Images
Icons may be helpful in certain situations which require the repeated use of an icon in a table or infobox, or to denote certain game concepts such as factions, skills, NPCs, or objects in space).
Inappropriate use
Do not use icons in general article prose
Icons should not be used in the article body. This breaks up the continuity of the text, distracting the reader (example).
Exception: The skillbook icon (
) as generated by {{sk}} may be used as shorthand for "skill" in article sections where skills are not the primary topic of the section.
Encyclopedic purpose
Icons should serve an encyclopedic purpose and not merely be decorative. They should provide additional useful information on the article subject, serve as visual cues that aid the reader's comprehension, or improve navigation. Icons should not be added only because they look good: one reader's harmless decoration may be another reader's distraction. An icon is purely decorative if it does not improve comprehension of the article subject and serves no navigational function. Where icons are used for layout purposes only, consider using bullet points as an alternative.
Do not use too many icons
When icons are added excessively, they clutter the page and become redundant, as in this sportsperson's infobox.
Do not repurpose icons beyond their legitimate scope
Icons can represent a specific entity and should not be repurposed to represent something else, e.g. because an actually appropriate flag is not available. For example, do not abuse the flag of the United Nations to represent the entire world, as this is not an accurate application of the official flag of that international organization.
Remember accessibility for the visually impaired
Every functional icon should have alt text, which is text describing the visual appearance of the image. Failure to provide this alt text will often make the icon meaningless or confusing to those using screen readers or text-only browsers. To provide alt text, simply add the description to the end of the image markup: for example, "[[File:Skill.png|22px|Skills]]" generates an icon that has alt text "Skills".
Logos
Template:Redirect Template:Shortcut The insertion of logos as icons into articles is strongly discouraged: While illustration of a logo may be appropriate at the main article on the topic to which the logo pertains, use of logos as icons is not useful to our readers, and often presents legal problems.
Non-free images
Use of company logos, sports team crests, and other images protected as intellectual property (including as copyrights, trademarks, and service marks) in articles can only be done on a fair use basis. Use of such images is nearly always prohibited (for more information, see Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline and Wikipedia:Logos).
Free images
While legal problems may not be present (no intellectual property right being claimable), all of this guideline's rationales against use of icons as decoration still apply. Generally, addition of logos to article prose or tabular data does not improve the encyclopedia and leads to confusing visual clutter.
