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You are wrong about the cheap lens test

Experiment #162 · closed · published 7/5/2026, 10:29:00 AM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypeclaim
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypebefore_after
  • publishSlotweekend_am
  • formatcommentary
  • topicCluster6

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish24,804
  • Days since previous post0.6
  • Channel age at publish (days)226
  • Local publish time7/5/2026, 10:29:00 AM

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)

137

Baseline expected

154

Residual reward

-0.19σ

raw -0.19σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)13720,139170
24h7511,076040
72h11016,111050

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.19σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_6 +0.008, publish_slot:weekend_am +0.008, thumbnail_archetype:before_after +0.006.

    • topic_6-0.299-0.291 Δ+0.008±0.28
    • weekend_am0.1260.134 Δ+0.008±0.28
    • before_after0.0770.083 Δ+0.006±0.27
    • commentary-0.039-0.033 Δ+0.006±0.26
    • claim-0.163-0.158 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • 4_10m-0.086-0.082 Δ+0.004±0.26
    • topic_70.1970.194 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • list-0.021-0.023 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • weekday_late-0.111-0.113 Δ-0.002±0.28
    • object_hero-0.280-0.282 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • weekend_pm0.1520.150 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • 20m_plus-0.106-0.107 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • topic_2-0.184-0.186 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • topic_30.2740.273 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • demo_first-0.097-0.098 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • face_reaction0.0610.060 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.039-0.040 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • text_dominant0.0680.067 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • shorts-0.057-0.058 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • topic_1-0.084-0.085 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.137-0.138 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • under_60s0.0720.071 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • question0.1460.146 Δ-0.000±0.26
    • interview0.1740.174 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • number_list-0.094-0.094 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • contrarian-0.022-0.022 Δ-0.000±0.26
    • topic_0-0.032-0.032 Δ+0.000±0.25
    • none0.0640.064 Δ+0.000±0.27
    • story_cold_open0.2190.219 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • topic_5-0.052-0.052 Δ-0.000±0.28
    • topic_40.1710.170 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • vlog-0.057-0.057 Δ-0.000±0.26
    • tutorial-0.010-0.010 Δ-0.000±0.25
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