It is unclear to me how user IP-hiding furthers the goal of writing an encyclopedia. Denying Arbitration Committee members the ability to check a user's IP seems to be imposing inefficiency on an over-burdened community resource. That this is an issue is confusing to me.
Jkelly
Quoting BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.