We need a POI database

just a suggestion about how OSM can better manage POIs on maps, it would make sense to store these in a separate database and somehow combine using rendering tool etc…
this would make the maintence and importing of POIs as well as searching a bit easier.

or alternatively a tool for extracting/reporting etc…

eg if I have a flat file of shops or petrol stations etc… , I know we can import using the current tools but this is difficult when maintain and removing duplicates or corrections…

just a idea…

Extracting POIs from the database isn’t that hard:

http://xapi.openstreetmap.org/api/0.5/*[amenity=fuel]
http://xapi.openstreetmap.org/api/0.5/*[shop=butcher]

I don’t see where it makes sense to store them in a separate database, just for the reasons you mention.

the main reason is you can search for them and update them by category rather than geographically.

It’s an admirable goal, can you describe more in detail how things could be easier for you todo this? Using xapi is pretty easy for me, but I understand that isn’t the case for everybody. Exporting amenity=fuel as a flat file is “easy”, it can be done in the browser with out ever writing any serverside code.