I'm new to the community and don't understand all the ins and outs of how it works. I'm not sure whether my opinion holds as much value as a veteran's, but I probably at least bring fresh eyes. I personally feel that sometimes the veterans forget what it was like to be a new user.

What I really like about the PHP Errors Reference:

• All the answers have the same format.
• There is one clear answer for each error.
• As a CW, one answer gets improved upon instead of having multiple partial answers.
• The errors are easy to find; the links at the top use the exact error text.
• There is very little clutter.

The problems I see with the the dupes:

• The question and answers are too localized.
• Because they are easy to answer,
  • there is an abundance of mediocre answers.
  • there is a lot of clutter.
• If there are any good answers, they aren't accepted and don't float to the top.
• The 'Possible Duplicate' links often send one around in circles.

Community Objections:
Upon reading through the answers and comments on this page, it seems there are a few recurring objections.

• There are a large number of possible error messages and this page could grow so large as to be unusable. Counter Argument: While there are a lot of error messages, there are a limited number of common error messages that come up over and over and over again.

• What happens if every language wants to have their own error reference like this? Counter Argument: I believe¹ PHP is one of the most popular programming languages on the Internet especially among newbie programmers which, I think, has a direct effect on the volume of users asking questions about common error messages.

• The dupes should be closed against an existing question. Counter Argument: I don't think this works well for the reasons I've already mentioned.

  Plus, I would much prefer to be directed to a reference rather than having to wade through the clutter of mediocre answers (and the attached comments, by experienced users, stating why one should not follow the advice in the answer). If you aren't going to answer the question directly, then give me a reference I can use. Don't make me try to figure out how someone else's question applies to my circumstances.

  Would I let you know if the other question failed to help? Probably not. I'd probably just visit the next link in Google.

• Do you really expect this will stop users from posting dupes? Counter Argument: I'm not sure whether it will help in that regard or not. I think it will help some if made visible enough. But, I'm more interested in having a quality link to provide users with or close dupes against. The experienced users have to do more than just manage the dupes; they have to warn users against implementing the bad answers. If there was one question (or a short list of questions) that was considered the quality question to close against, I think this would make it easier to consistently, and quickly, close the dupes. Right now, many never get closed and the ones that do get closed are closed against different questions. If you follow the 'Possible Duplicate' links you often end up going in circles.

• The format, with each answer only answering part of the question, is not how SO was designed to be used. Counter Argument: So what's the solution then? Do we create individual questions and answers?

  The problems I see with creating new individual questions and answers:

  • My understanding is that you can't use a title that already exists. So how do we give them effective titles?
  • What's to stop these from being closed as dupes?
  • What's to stop these from accumulating clutter and mediocre answers?

Tag Wikis:
I only learned about these today because of this post. Perhaps they should at least be explained in the FAQ. This does seem like the ideal place to put this type of information if it could be overhauled to serve the needs of the community as others have already aptly described. Has this been submitted as a feature request?

In Conclusion:
I realize that SO is designed as a Q&A site, but the goal is to be useful to its users. I think the main thing we should be asking ourselves is how to best reconcile these two purposes.

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^{1: This is only my general impression. If someone has stats to support or disprove this theory, I'd appreciate it.}