It seems there was a checkbox in 'Edit your user information' as stated in:
Make scratch pad public (in node: How do I change my home node?)

Also in my case there is only a link named 'Edit scratchpad' instead of a checkbox to make it public.

Dietz' scratchpad

Regards,
Dietz


Update: added pad link (though my home node still says 'Scratchpad: None')

Update 2 (Jul 30, 2004): thanks to demerphq on manually fixing affected accounts my scratchpad is now showing up