I appreciate the reply.

> If upvoting doesn’t require justification neither should downvoting.

I disagree, since downvoting is not equal to upvoting. First off, not everyone has the ability downvote (at least on hackernews). Second, upvoting usually means you agree with something, while not agreeing should be reserved to the action of NOT upvoting. This is how most social media works. Downvoting should be reserved for something that should not belong on the thread.

Regarding the topic of the discussion, I agree that "builders" should be proactive and knowledgeable about the system that they are building, but the "chief architect"/project manager should be the intermediary between them and the clients, if for nothing other than being a single source of truth.