A module should be created with default external link icons and styling so that skins using a standard styling (using, compatible with, or similar to commonelements etc) don't need to reimplement and duplicate the entire external links styling out of another skin.
Ideally this common module would replace the external link icons in both monobook and vector, as well as myriad custom skins, thus making it much easier to maintain this aspect of skins.
Version: 1.23.0
Severity: enhancement
See Also:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54604