That's why to start simple, to see if we need to.
Something
to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template.
Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature
from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and
"further
reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work
a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps
academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood
"sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good
opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing
it there.
Steve