In early , the only Usenet or altnet newsgroup for written erotica was "rec. On May 7, , Tim Pierce created "alt. Amateur writers of all sorts began posting fictional "erotic stories" and finding a worldwide audience for their work. However, because of the very nature of unmoderated newsgroups, "alt. The average quality of the stories posted to the newsgroup seemed somewhat lower and more crude than the stories seen in pornographic magazines and books, and this state of affairs continues to the current day. Nonetheless, the laughable quality of some of the stories on the newsgroup was offset by a large number of relatively decent "stories.