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Nobody saw my thumbnail workflow

Experiment #133 · closed · published 5/26/2026, 6:05:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypestory_cold_open
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypetext_dominant
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formatcommentary
  • topicCluster4

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish21,834
  • Days since previous post0.4
  • Channel age at publish (days)186
  • Local publish time5/26/2026, 6:05:00 PM

The residual reward

Raw views mostly measure how big the channel already was. The baseline predicts what this channel “should” have earned given the confounds above; the residual is how the post actually landed relative to that prediction — measured in standard deviations.

Observed (168h)

446

Baseline expected

132

Residual reward

+2.03σ

raw 2.03σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)44665,5622221
24h24536,0591120
72h35752,4501181

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 2.03σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_4 +0.096, format:commentary +0.095, hook_type:story_cold_open +0.085.

    • topic_40.1670.263 Δ+0.096±0.26
    • commentary-0.183-0.088 Δ+0.095±0.27
    • story_cold_open0.1360.221 Δ+0.085±0.26
    • 4_10m-0.220-0.157 Δ+0.063±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0560.096 Δ+0.040±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.071-0.031 Δ+0.040±0.25
    • demo_first-0.035-0.073 Δ-0.038±0.26
    • topic_2-0.155-0.190 Δ-0.034±0.27
    • topic_0-0.065-0.098 Δ-0.032±0.27
    • shorts0.1600.129 Δ-0.031±0.27
    • vlog-0.126-0.155 Δ-0.029±0.27
    • list-0.028-0.053 Δ-0.025±0.28
    • face_reaction0.0830.059 Δ-0.024±0.26
    • topic_1-0.055-0.079 Δ-0.024±0.26
    • before_after0.1560.135 Δ-0.022±0.30
    • weekend_pm0.3260.307 Δ-0.020±0.28
    • under_60s0.1200.103 Δ-0.018±0.27
    • number_list-0.069-0.086 Δ-0.017±0.26
    • 1_4m0.002-0.014 Δ-0.017±0.26
    • claim-0.091-0.108 Δ-0.016±0.27
    • 20m_plus0.003-0.013 Δ-0.016±0.28
    • tutorial0.0290.015 Δ-0.014±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.119-0.132 Δ-0.013±0.26
    • topic_6-0.517-0.530 Δ-0.013±0.32
    • contrarian-0.051-0.063 Δ-0.012±0.28
    • 10_20m0.0830.072 Δ-0.011±0.26
    • topic_50.1000.107 Δ+0.008±0.30
    • interview0.1370.142 Δ+0.005±0.26
    • none0.0130.017 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • weekend_am0.1190.116 Δ-0.003±0.30
    • topic_70.2300.233 Δ+0.003±0.29
    • object_hero-0.319-0.316 Δ+0.003±0.27
    • topic_30.2850.282 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • weekday_late-0.267-0.269 Δ-0.002±0.29
    • question0.0990.099 Δ-0.001±0.27
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