(the points were generated by user Manchito during changeset named OCHA boundary import. I stumbled upon it because admin area http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2346720 doesn’t show up in my spatialite database of admin_level areas. That might be connected, or it might mean I have to study a bit more on the peculiarities of using OSM data)
You are right : these nodes have to be connected with a line (multiple OSM “way’s”). Then the ways have to be member of a relation of type “boundary”. But it also needs some simplification. This looks like a bad import which (partially ?) failed.
If you want to help OSM, you can try to contact first Manchito directly (through his user page www.openstreetmap.org/user/Manchito/)) and ask him to clean-up his mess. If you don’t get an answer after few days, you can try to fix it yourself. I think the easiest is to revert the failing changeset (or at least the isolated nodes) and re-import the boundary.
Right. I recon there is a connection between broken admin areas and messed up admin areas.
I saw a similar mess in Bolivia after the removal by redaction of non-open data borders there. Hope it’s nothing like that.