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Is it worth the cheap lens test

Experiment #140 · closed · published 6/5/2026, 8:24:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypequestion
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypebefore_after
  • publishSlotweekday_late
  • formatinterview
  • topicCluster6

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish22,554
  • Days since previous post0.3
  • Channel age at publish (days)196
  • Local publish time6/5/2026, 8:24:00 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)

286

Baseline expected

161

Residual reward

+0.96σ

raw 0.96σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)28642,0421141
24h15723,123180
72h22933,6341110

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 0.96σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_6 +0.097, thumbnail_archetype:before_after +0.061, length_bucket:4_10m +0.058.

    • topic_6-0.527-0.429 Δ+0.097±0.31
    • before_after0.1420.203 Δ+0.061±0.29
    • 4_10m-0.163-0.105 Δ+0.058±0.27
    • weekday_late-0.279-0.224 Δ+0.055±0.28
    • interview0.1450.186 Δ+0.042±0.26
    • question0.1130.148 Δ+0.035±0.27
    • 20m_plus-0.005-0.038 Δ-0.033±0.28
    • weekend_pm0.3040.282 Δ-0.023±0.28
    • topic_30.3260.309 Δ-0.017±0.27
    • topic_40.2860.270 Δ-0.016±0.26
    • topic_1-0.077-0.092 Δ-0.015±0.26
    • list-0.020-0.033 Δ-0.013±0.28
    • topic_0-0.075-0.088 Δ-0.013±0.26
    • weekend_am0.1470.159 Δ+0.012±0.29
    • object_hero-0.289-0.301 Δ-0.012±0.27
    • weekday_am-0.152-0.164 Δ-0.012±0.26
    • demo_first-0.073-0.084 Δ-0.012±0.26
    • none0.0230.012 Δ-0.010±0.27
    • weekday_pm-0.037-0.046 Δ-0.009±0.24
    • text_dominant0.0550.047 Δ-0.008±0.25
    • topic_70.2140.207 Δ-0.007±0.28
    • commentary-0.054-0.061 Δ-0.007±0.27
    • vlog-0.157-0.150 Δ+0.007±0.27
    • face_reaction0.0510.045 Δ-0.006±0.25
    • topic_2-0.182-0.187 Δ-0.006±0.27
    • claim-0.160-0.157 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • 10_20m0.0730.070 Δ-0.003±0.26
    • shorts0.0670.065 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • 1_4m0.0050.007 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • number_list-0.094-0.096 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • tutorial0.001-0.000 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • topic_50.0160.017 Δ+0.001±0.30
    • under_60s0.0730.072 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • story_cold_open0.2510.251 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • contrarian-0.055-0.055 Δ-0.000±0.28
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