[OSM-newbies] Help with substation data

[Michael Heißmeier]

Ricky,

I would not consider an import as "frowned upon". Certainly it is not something 
which occurs on a monthly basis. Imports I have been aware of in the past 
include those of more-or-less all buildings in France as a donation by the state 
cadastre office which occured a couple of years ago.

Imports occur more frequently in humanitarian context because often countries 
affected by a crisis are not well mapped. Sometimes other organizations donate 
some of their data to OSM and - after an additional mapping effort - get maps of 
so far unseen quality to assist their staff on the ground. To give you an idea 
of the "paperwork" involved, have a look at 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import_CAR_UNICEF_FOSA That document was 
prepared by the initiator of the import as basis for the discussions on the 
import mailing list and nicely presents all the items one has to keep in mind, 
from obtaining a license to working out a tagging scheme. The more detailed 
workflow document mentioned therein was necessary because it was designed to be 
a community effort - cleaning the data could not have been performed by just one 
person alone.

Regards

Michael