I sometimes cite sources using bare URLs. However, I always aim to include a bareurls template when I do so.

I do this because:

• I believe that citations should be much more automated by Wikipedia (probably via a central structured data store, e.g. Wikidata), and rather than do work that should be left to machines, I would rather focus on tasks (such as adding sources) that are likely to require human intervention for the foreseeable future;
• I haven't yet encountered any automated citation tools for Wikipedia that I found adequately ergonomic and secure;
• I find manually filling in the various citation templates (copy-pasting first name, last name, etc) unbearably unergonomic and tedious;
• it plays to my strengths (improving Wikipedia by adding WP:RS) while delegating to others the business of filling in the details: something that many Wikipedians are brilliant at and seem to enjoy, unlike me. Someone invariably tidies up the bare URLs within a few days at most, and since these are usually editors whose edit histories show ref-tidying to be among their most frequent activities, it seems likely that they get some satisfaction from this, too. Both because of this, and because Wikipedia is not mandatory, it does not seem to be objectively selfish or unreasonable behaviour, on my part, to edit this way. Quite the contrary: this approach feels collaborative, as wikis are intended to be. It ends up being a triple win 👁 Image