Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates

List of tallest buildings in Detroit

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skyscrapers

I am nominating this for featured list removal because it has not aged well and has many critical issues, primarily citations.

• Major citation needed, some are indicated with tags, but many statements lack citations. For example much of the history section is unreferenced, many notes.
• Some fluffy words were added: "Downtown Detroit has been undergoing revitalization in the 21st century...bringing with it many significant restoration projects and new high-rises." - uncited (current citation doesn't talk about skyscraper restoration as far as I can tell) but also not backed up by the table itself (only 1 building is under construction).
• Subheading called "proposed" but includes no proposed buildings
• Outdated wording "this is a list of..."
• Notes that should be in notes but instead are in the heading (the year column represents...)
• Could use more linking (standard height measurements, pinnacle height)
• Heavily reliant on SkyscraperPage as a source, but it's considered inappropriate. from this previous discussion
• I did a spot check for the statement "Fully renovated in 2012 as a mixed-use, primarily residential building". But the links did not contain this information. Also this isn't a complete sentence. Another spot check failed for the David Broderick Tower: the text says lower 4 floors are offices and the citation says "office space on floors 5 and 6".
• One note on estimated height isn't in the notes section, and is unexplained. Why would a building made in 2024 not have a known height?
• No images have alt-texts, which is a mandatory accessibility issue.
• Notes B-E do not have citations.
• "several buildings in Detroit", why not list exact number with a citation?
• Many buildings have a note area that is just blank, but why? For example Guardian Building is blank but could include something like "It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989". If a building is notable and has it's own page surely there is a brief summary we can give of this building.
• The history section doesn't make sense. The graph shows stagnation in growth from 1930-1960, but in the subheading lead it says nothing about this. It then says the latter 20th century deindustrialization and suburbanization affected the growth of Detroit's skyline, but the graph shows the number of high-rises booming in this period.

I tried to make some of these changes, but have nearly entered a edit war so I bring this here to get other's opinions. Mattximus (talk) 16:21, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Unless someone is willing to make some pretty major changes, I will have to vote for Delist. Mattximus (talk) 02:12, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

It appears that a lot of these "tallest buildings" lists that were promoted years ago have the same problems. Perhaps we should examine them all en masse? Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:48, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

This one in particular was nominated in 2007 (!!), and yes many of the issues I highlighted apply to the others, but they are also significantly different than they were when nominated. Would it be advantageous to examine them all, or could we save some of them if we do them one at a time? Mattximus (talk) 17:56, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Bgsu98 and @Mattximus, en masse FLRC nominations would overload FLRC, the nominators, and the wikiprojects in question. Please nominate them one at a time. Accessedgrant (Epicgenius mobile alt) (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

• Agree, this one will take quite a bit of work to save, and work has begun. 02:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Agree that the SkyscraperPage citations could be removed as all of these buildings have a CTBUH citation instead; when it was promoted in 2007 citing Emporis and SkyscraperPage was the norm and no one had an issue with that somehow. Some other citations can be improved or added, just tag cn on those if there is an unsupported statement.

Alt texts can be added, and citations could be improved. I will work on that.

Re: "several buildings in Detroit ... " I wrote that phrase after you insisted on rephrasing the text before the table to include the number, then added a 'citation needed' tag to it. The thing about lists of tallest buildings is that there is *no* single or consistent reliable source reporting buildings above a certain height - absolutely none.

Are you certain none? Municipal planning documents? Zoning documents? Tax or property records? City building permit databases? Have you tried [data.detroitmi.gov] Mattximus (talk) 02:42, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

CTBUH will have buildings missing, SkyscraperPage will have buildings missing, and these two are the only databases for this sort of information. The list includes building verified to exist whose heights are verifiable, which is why it can be confidently said to have the number of entries in the table, that being 39. I think people are unaware of just how spotty building height data is when organizations like the CTBUH don't even seem to care as much.

In addition, there is no guideline that says the text can not say "this table includes" or "this list ranks ...", which is indeed how it was phrased when this list was promoted in 2007. You suggest that the only alternative is to write the exact number of entries instead, which (having checked many other featured lists) is not something they do at all, and is untenable for reasons I cited above.

• This wording is very out of date, and no new featured lists have this wording, suggest updating it so it's a description of the table contents, not the table itself. Mattximus (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The proposed subheading is simply to show that there are no proposed buildings.

This doesn't make sense unfortunately, we can't have a heading that says proposed buildings then include no proposed buildings (this is independent of the fact we shouldn't even be including proposed buildings on a list of tallest buildings). Mattximus (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd be fine with removing the pinnacle height table entirely.

• Yes this is a bit redundant, good idea. Mattximus (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I do take some offense to saying it hasn't "aged well", considering this list was in much poorer shape that a year ago, before I made any edits to it. The average reader interested in Detroit's skyline will find the current list very useful. LivinAWestLife (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Mattximus You supported promoting List of tallest buildings in Spokane a few years ago, which directly states "Spokane has 24 high rises that stand at least 145 feet (44 m) tall based on standard height measurement ..." without a source stating that there are 24. This is fine since every entry does have a citation for the height, such that I know it is reasonably comprehensive. So I doubt this is an issue. In comparison, the Detroit article is more detailed and informative.

• I'm open to discussion here, but how do we know the list is comprehensive? How do we know we aren't missing a building? Mattximus (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The only valid critique is the inclusion of proposed, non-approved buildings alluding to WP:CRYSTAL, which I am fine with removing. LivinAWestLife (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Also, regarding "Why would a building made in 2024 not have a known height", there are many, many, MANY new skyscrapers and high-rises whose heights are unknown because the developer doesn't bother to release them. It's way more likely that an older building has a known height because an organization like CTBUH has bothered to measure it. This is unfortuately true as I have come to known over years of dealing with this stuff. LivinAWestLife (talk) 18:01, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Mattximus If you prefer, I can reformat the table heading to clarify "year of completion" or any other long headers as a footnote. LivinAWestLife (talk) 23:02, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm happy with the note feature already used in the table, or add year of completion in the table, whatever you think looks good. Just shouldn't be in the heading for the table, which is a summary of the contents of the table, not the table itself (which is why it shouldn't start with "this is a table of"). Mattximus (talk) 23:47, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

User:Mattximus: What is the state of this article at this point? Bgsu98 (Talk) 23:53, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Not great, it's very far from featured list, I made many recommendations and did a bunch of changes myself, but I was edit-warred, so I gave up. Unless someone is willing to tackle these I suggest Delist. Important things like accessibility, citation failed verifications, etc are all not being met. I think we should bring the "notes" column of tallest buildings up to a higher standard seen in articles like Listed buildings in Rivington, or the many other listed buildings articles which has a nice short note for each building. Here it's often just blank. Mattximus (talk) 14:32, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

• Delist per Mattximus. Bgsu98 (Talk) 23:31, 17 March 2026 (UTC)