It's just that I want to be able to quickly enter a Citation in "Chicago Style" (''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicago_Manual_of_Style The Chicago Manual of Style]'') or ''the'' general 80% use-case citation style by filling out a dialog box or template but without needing to brush up on things I might have learned while writing papers in college.
It's great that the open source community - both developers and editors - has been hacking away at Citations as a feature for years (e.g. [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2021/Results/Citations 2021 Wishlist Survey results for Citations] [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Results/Citations 2022] [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2023/Results/Citations 2023]), but . There has also been a years-long initiative to create "Global templates" * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates* https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates/Taxonomy* https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates/Taxonomy#Citations But in a 3rd-party context, I don't want to have to know or understand any of that in order to accomplish the simple task at hand: creating a citation/footnote in a standard format.
{{ambox|
It looks like you need to create your own templates - the original problem!
To quote from [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/extending_references WMDE Technical Wishes/extending references]:
<blockquote>
Preferences aside, the main reason for pro was that the proposed solution is an integrated functionality, not based on templates. These issues with templates were mentioned:
* Templates are hard to learn for new editors.
* Templates increase server load.
* Templates aren’t machine-readable, which makes processing for bots harder.
* Not all wikis use templates. An integrated solution would work in all wikis, independent of which templates they use.
</blockquote>
And then, you [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Citation_tool install the Visual Editor citation tool]}}
== Solution ==
A basic set of templates and possibly Lua code, system messages and Project namespace content bundled into a Page Exchange bundle.
== See Also ==
[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/4256/ Workboard for a "Cite Extends"] or so-called "book referencing" from German Wikipedia community https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Technische_W%C3%BCnsche/Topw%C3%BCnsche/Erweiterung_der_Einzelnachweise
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/4256/