Value proposition

Users who use VisualEditor for adding citations are currently not able to specify a name for a reference. VE auto-generates numbered references (:0, :1 ...). This is problematic because the reference names are not meaningful and hard to re-use. The problem mainly affects users who use Wikitext Editor or switch between the two editors often.

For example, a reference such as https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/us/wikipedia-harassment-wikimedia-foundation.html would be given a name like nyt-20190408 or nyt-wp-wmf which can then be reused by just specifying the reference name where a user wants to reuse it instead of filling in the citation template all over.

Note that VE currently only exposes names for references under the "Re-use" tab under "Cite":

Proposed solution

There are a few different things we can do here. After a discussion with Moriel and Ed Sanders, here's our current plan of action for this:
Step 1. Add a text input for "Name this reference (optional)" to the Basic form for references in VE

Step 2. (will be a new ticket) Add a link for Advanced in the footer to the template editor when someone edits a reference that links back to the Basic form so users can edit the reference. This part needs more thinking and fleshing out.

Mock

TBD

Needs QA?

YES.