I could imagine writing an article myself about how Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape has influenced fanworks about Snape, for example. If I did, then I would certainly want to include a movie still or photo of Rickman as Snape.
A thumbnail image of Rickman as Snape would indeed be fair use, as described in the policy. But that's why we did put in a section about copyright tags and using copyrighted images in a fashion that would be defensible if challenged: because we wanted to make it easier for users to know how to include copyrighted images in a way that met "fair use" guidelines.
Any image policy really does need to address issues of copyright, since we don't want to exclude or ban the use of copyrighted images.
Some fandoms will almost never run into this problem, but others will, and we're trying to make this inclusive for many fandoms.
Re: is anyone looking at usability and inclusiveness?
A thumbnail image of Rickman as Snape would indeed be fair use, as described in the policy. But that's why we did put in a section about copyright tags and using copyrighted images in a fashion that would be defensible if challenged: because we wanted to make it easier for users to know how to include copyrighted images in a way that met "fair use" guidelines.
Any image policy really does need to address issues of copyright, since we don't want to exclude or ban the use of copyrighted images.
Some fandoms will almost never run into this problem, but others will, and we're trying to make this inclusive for many fandoms.