Hey all, I have actually never had an issue with this and in fact never noticed it ... until today:
I have installed PR on a different machine, I was able to use my original account after DE-selecting "retrieve" and going back a screen. So everythiung was fine it seemed.
But when I went to join a server, it said the message about server rank (whcih I never ever noticed before, assumably because i have been playing for years and generally am indeed on white list) After much fiddling and looking at replies on this forum, I wnet to my steam account, which I, like many others, really don't use that much.
On my Steam account, everything IS alread set to "public" as suggested.
upon digging further, i noticed I have zero points according to Steam because I have never given them a credit card. I DO own about 4 Steam games though, they were just bought at places other than the actual Steam store. Still, Steam shows me havinf zero Steam points, which is incredibly frustrating considering its effect for me on PR (possibly)
I say possibly because here's my quandry:
1). I was able to play just fine for the last year even though I just found out Steam says I have zero points. But upon re-installing today in a different machine, i can't get in to servers.
2). I DID in fact follow the directions to update my rank on the support tab, and my rank shows up as "2" ... still can't log in.
I'd looove to gripe about the hoops being too much as others have done LOL
but truth be told, I'm super happy you guys came up with a good methid to weed out what is likely 95% of hackers and griefers.

<3
Still, I'm in a weird spot now, and i'm not sure creating accounts at the different servers and asking to be white-listed is the solution, it is also quite a lot to endure for someone who has been playing since version .5 and i can't even imagine if this issue is going to affect any new blood.
Any ideas about this?
I'm assuming it isn't common if I jsut noticed it today for the very first time.
Thanks all, love youz XD