Hello Andy,
nice to hear this news! Maybe we can get valuable information for the online map.
OSM Data are "open source but copyrighted": They are stored in a database which can be accessed by anyone under an ODbL-Licence (details English: osm.org/copyright/en - French: osm.org/copyright/fr). In short words: Everyone can download data from there, create a map from it and publish this map, as long as he/she credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors (e.g. Copyright OpenStreetmapContributers). As far as I remember the created map must be under the same licence (given avay without fee). A permission simply must allow this. Some institutions already gave data to OSM under the condition to be mentioned on the contributers page (osm.wiki/Contributors).
On http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Licence_and_Legal_FAQ you will find a Q&A about the OSM licence.
I hope i could help you a bit.

Hello MrMoehritz,
thank you for your kind post.
The quarters of Atakpamé are still quite far from complete, because there is a lot I don't know exactly. When I started to map the first of them, I used the neighbourhood tags because of the size (compared with e.g. Lomé). Later I thougt "suburb" fitts better, because most of these quarters in the past (some of them long ago) had been villages of theit own and today have a chef de canton. Lately I had the plan to change every quarter with an own chef to "suburb", but finally didn't realize it, because of my lack of information. E.g. I saw the spelling of the central quarter of Houdou on the homepage of Atakpamé Mairie the way I used it in my name-tag. At the local chef they spelled it with a "V" at the beginning...
So if you know more about it (or you want to "standardise" the tagging for Atakpamé quarters) please feel free to do so. And if you know other quarters with their names, please add a place node at their (at least approximate) position. Thank you for your help!
Vielen Dank!

Hello DawudAndy and welcome to OpenStreetMap!
You are right. I'm not living in Lome and visit the city only one in a wile, but the map on the internet-page of Mairie/Commune de Lomé says exactly the same as you as a "local citizen". Unfortunatly this map is material under copyright, so we can not use it to map the boundaries of arrondisments and quartiers of Lomé. Maybe we could derive at least their names and approximate location from the code of the street names (a lot of them were noted from street signs by the Togolese OSM community) in order to set place nodes.
The Klikamé label you mentioned in your first comment was rendered on the map because of a place node like the one you corrected. I've changed it and added the is_in tags. Surely not the complete set of them is really necessary (probably everyone could guess we are in Africa here). I used them only to show them in completeness as an example.
Peter

Thank you for your hint!

Thank you for your notice. I hope I have cleared the problem now. There was really a bug: it first uploaded the correct data and then the wrong ones again so I reverted the second upload competely. I have checked some of the POIs, which now should be office=software again, and they are correct again. Please tell me, if you still notice problems.

My reason: "it" stands for "information technology". The english wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology) explaines "The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, e-commerce and computer services". So it is a more general term or superordinate subject than hardware or software but including both.

As it is not a shop=*-tag companies mainly selling software or computers are not meant. Manufactures are excludet, too. In practise I see among the "office=it" POIs very often offices designing software for customers (including training of their customers employees) as well as "maintainers", who are installing e.g. office-networks (hard- and software) and keep them running (repairing, replacement of older printers or computers, software-updates, necessary adaptions etc). Others describe their buisness as "internet solutions": They develope your internet homepage which partially has to do with software (set up of a content management system) but also help to find the right provider to host your internet presentation, some also provide server capacities by their own. Sometimes they can even "feed" your databases for you (by delivering content - cf. "data minig" etc. - or by connecting your systems with sensors like GPS in your company's HGVs or RFID-systems). So in most cases you can not separate hardware, software, training and consulting from each other. No one will design a kind of IT-architecture for you and doesn't have any software solution for its use. And no one will design any software framework for you without any training for your personal and no advice which hardware is necessary for your purposes (and where to get it). How will you tag such companies as you had to combine a group of different office tags? I think this is the reason why office=it is used more than 2100 times while office=software was to find only 15 times and nearly all offices doing software-engeneering are tagged as "it".

If a further distinction is really necessary: Perhaps it could be an idea to use a scheme like "office=it; it=software" or better "office=it; software=yes/no; trainig=yes/no; consulting=yes/no" like we use it for some kinds of shops already. However: A system like this must be maintained, e.g. when a company changes its services offered for customers.

I thought this was generally accepted. But I can be wrong, too.

In the world of OSM surely my opinion is NOT the only one that counts. So if you insist on "office=software" please let me know and I will change it back.