Yes, "many professionals in various fields--including finance" ... and most were wiped out by 2001 or '02.
Also starting about 1995 or '96, I occasionally posted on Yahoo, Raging Bull and a very few times on SI. My stock investing started many years before that, pre-internet.
I actually still visit Silicon Investor quite often. There are still a few posters that I knew from back in the day there. Not a lot of activity there these days thou. But I always preferred it over Investorshub. I had a membership early on here but never followed it much until Rick Walker and Dale Hoffman started talking about Urbies new play.