Tonight, we have been experiencing problems with the java chat.
If you try to connect and are told you are banned, don't worry, it's not true. Keep trying and you will get in.
As soon as tweak spots this post, or I see him in the chat in the morning, he will be notified so he can figure out what's going wrong.
Those who use trillian and other IRC clients to connect are not having this trouble. This is isolated to the java chat only.