Does anyone else think the complexity of the markup is an explanation declining editorship?
Great point David Robbins. 95% of what I have been reading in this discussion is exactly the kind of "Inside Baseball" that discourages newcomers!
I actually think this person was understating the problem. I'm also a new user and I came here and shortly after I started I realized there was a lot of citation needed marks all over a lot of pages. So I figured, hey what about those papers I wrote the other day, they had cites in them, maybe I can match up here. However I have since had an insane time trying to make proper citations. I had to re-edit my last citation I made 4 times. The problem is that I'm copying other user's cites to use as templates and quick simple templates that should be at the fingertips of users from post 1 are... difficult to find, they are not even included in the beginner info in the my talk section.
We see loads of pages that are written by people who look like professionals and write long well informed paragraphs with no cites and it's no wonder, even if they have the data to back it up, just figuring out how to make a simple cite is bonkers. Many academic institutions won't accept Wikipedia as a source and the sourcing on Wikipedia actually allows people to use some of the information here in an academic setting. I think this is a chronic problem and partially related to the real reason for the decline in membership. These people who want to use to help source papers are potential source contributors themselves but it requires the process to be a little less difficult than pulling teeth on a chicken.
I think a simple page with good and simple templates linked to on the edit page could help. I also think it's possible to make a simple device using pull-down tabs to specify the type of media and clearly entered data to actually make professionally formatted citations that they could then cut and paste to where they want them. We need a quick user friendly cite creator tool.
Hi 70.71.15.41. Do you not see the cite tool where you're editing? It is essentially what you're asking for. I used to edit citations like you (copying and editing the cites of other people) and it was awful: this tool solves that problem.
I think it's enabled as part of Vector by default on all language-versions, but a few people around the office tell me they don't see it, probably because they've customized their interface with a gadget that displaces it.
Here's a screencapture. 
Essentially, you click "Cite" on the upper right, which reveals the Templates pulldown.
Hi Sue. I've never seen that, so I guess I tweaked my interface. If I did, I have no recall of how I did it, or how to fix it, or what "Vector" is, or... But anyway, even if there is a wizard with macros for generating the markup, the problem as I see it isn't generating the markup -- it's the markup itself.
Here's a dramatization of the conundrum, as I see it:
Yeah, the solution needs to go beyond macros, shortcuts, and buttons. It has to go into full "WYSIWYG" mode. I know that takes time.
Babbage, your image is hilarious: I posted copies around the office. Yes, you and RandomRan are correct: we need the Visual Editor (WYSIWYG). The cite tool's just a short-term workaround which fixes one particularly annoying problem.