How do I add Citation Templates for a Wiki?

Why are the Wikipedia templates not universal in all languages?

• Coming from editing mostly English articles at the vast English Wikipedia, I was annoyed repeatedly to see that the German Wikipedia (my native language) does not share the same template bricks (I mean {{something}}) as the English Wikipedia. Instead often, German names are used, thus if I use the English templates I am used to, they don't work! In some cases, as {{cn}}, even some of those don't exist at all! How should that enlarge and speed up participation? And who did put these mechanics in place when? To me e.g. {{cn}} is one of the most widely used templates and I think it is a wiser, more precise and unobstrusive choice than the templates that have a size larger than most 'userboxes'. (I lack the terms to describe what I mean but see the box on top: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlage:Belege_fehlen via http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilfe:Einzelnachweise#Umgang_mit_fehlenden_Einzelnachweisen ) Basically I wonder why Wikipedia needs this extreme scale of 'localization'. I consider Wikipedians as smart and capable of English. Especially Germans do have an excellent English ability, which is backed by hard statistical data. cp. programming, which involves more English terms than Wikipedia, yet obviously no one ever dared to localize terms for markup- and programming languages. Finally, even if most German Wikipedians could not speak or understand English (or use a translator), I don't see how a detailed description of each template in German language would not totally resolve this issue. As said in the beginning, it is beyond me how a already complex system with a steep learning curve for editors is made even more complex for those of us who are fluent in multiple languages and could easily add value to multiple Wikipedia sites.

• Answer:

  I sympathize with your frustration, but the reasons behind this unfortunate setup actually reflect one of the core strengths of Wikipedia: individual users, and individual projects (i.e. language editions), are empowered and encouraged to innovate as they see fit, as opposed to having design decisions made centrally and then distributed to various projects. So, on the English language Wikipedia, you have a collection of templates that has emerged as individual Wikipedians create them to solve problems or add functionality as they see fit. In parallel, the same thing has been happening on German Wikipedia, for many years. Sometimes, efforts are made to synchronize useful innovations, and share them across projects; but often, different systems that are developed on different projects are not entirely compatible. One may have strengths that another lacks. It is possible to redirect names to templates. So where there is a German name for a template, it would be possible to create a redirect from the English name, to make it easier to find for editors more familiar with he English Wikipedia. But it is unlikely that there will ever be a perfect match from one language to another. You may also wish to read up on the recently announced "WikiData" project, which aims to address a similar set of opportunities.