The importance of a place is usually computed from the page importance of the wikipedia page of the place. Only if there is no such page does the place get a default importance that is derived from its search rank. The formula for the default importance was created when wikipedia/wikidata tags were rather rare in OSM. The formula therefore tries to compute a value that is equivalent to the wikipedia importances. 15 years down the road pretty much all significant places in OSM have their wikipedia tag and absence of such tag is a good indicator that a place is less well known. It is time to reduce the default importance and give wikipedia-tagged places a bit of a boost that way.
This mainly effects smaller peaks, streams and lakes, which tended to show up too soon in the results.
The importance of a place is usually computed from the page importance of the wikipedia page of the place. Only if there is no such page does the place get a default importance that is derived from its search rank. The formula for the default importance was created when wikipedia/wikidata tags were rather rare in OSM. The formula therefore tries to compute a value that is equivalent to the wikipedia importances. 15 years down the road pretty much all significant places in OSM have their wikipedia tag and absence of such tag is a good indicator that a place is less well known. It is time to reduce the default importance and give wikipedia-tagged places a bit of a boost that way.
This mainly effects smaller peaks, streams and lakes, which tended to show up too soon in the results.