Hi, I am caramel on the IRC channel.
#wrongplanet is often the target of script kiddies etc who like to go around and join channels going 'lol autism ret*ds n***ers' etc. When this happens or we are otherwise being attacked by spam an effective way to stop them is to temporarily set the channel to +r. This means only registered accounts may only join the channel when +r is set, so it stops the spam but also blocks people who have not registered their nicks.
Alex does not like +r being set because of people connecting through the java client being temporarily blocked during this process, but it is a) quick, b) effective and c) the preferred method of the Freenode network operators (ie people above the #wrongplanet ops) who often assist with these things when no #wrongplanet ops are online.
I can see you are back on now, so this was just an explanation
We strongly suggest that you *do* register your nickname and identify to the network though via the following method:
/nick aspiegirl101 (or desired nickname)
/msg nickserv register password email
And then when you connect to the network type (better off typing in the 'status' tab in case you make a typo and tell the whole world your password):
/nick nickname
/msg nickserv identify password
This lets you claim your nickname to be yours 