Dear Fritz Lang,
I am not sure if you are the appropriate entity to address with my concern, being that you are a dog and my problem does not involve ranking or the recommended list. It does involve favorites though, which are similar to recommendations in that they both consist of stories.
I favorite pretty much anything where I think, "I might like to read that again."
(Okay, so I'm easy, but that's not the point.)
My problem, aside from data hoarding, is that my faves list is full of dead links to stories that have been removed and I can't remove the story from the list because I can't open the story to unclick the favorite. I know this is a really stupid problem, but being unable to prune the dead weight makes it increasingly difficult for me to locate a specific story. (It might also help if the author and excerpt were displayed on my favorites tab. I have a terrible memory for titles.)
I think, optimally, links to stories that are still on the site but private would just go invisible so the fave bookmark returns if the writer makes the story public again and stories that are deleted would be removed from my list.
Also I've noticed that following a link to a dead story leads to a login page. It would be helpful if, instead of the login page (especially when I am already logged in), it told me something like "This story is no longer available on Fictionaut." Perhaps with a picture of yourself looking apologetic because it is hard to remain disappointed when confronted with a picture of an apologetic looking German Shepherd.
I realize that sausages are an important part of the process and so I have attempted to cram a rosemary and sage vegetarian sausage into my USB port in the hope that sausage molecules will attach to the electrons in this message. I trust the fact that it is a vegetarian sausage will not cause too great a conflict between the eat-anything nature of your dog self and your refined German taste in sausages. They are among the better vegetarian sausages I have sampled.
Sincerely,
Frankie Sachs
PS. Awhosagoodboy?!!