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3 mistakes editing at 2x speed

Experiment #171 · closed · published 7/18/2026, 4:36:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypenumber_list
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypeface_reaction
  • publishSlotweekend_pm
  • formatshorts
  • topicCluster5

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish25,884
  • Days since previous post2
  • Channel age at publish (days)239
  • Local publish time7/18/2026, 4:36:00 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)

102

Baseline expected

189

Residual reward

-1.03σ

raw -1.03σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)10253,550050
24h5629,452030
72h8242,840040

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 1.03σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_5 -0.040, length_bucket:20m_plus -0.037, publish_slot:weekend_pm -0.035.

    • topic_50.033-0.007 Δ-0.040±0.26
    • 20m_plus-0.082-0.119 Δ-0.037±0.26
    • weekend_pm0.1570.121 Δ-0.035±0.26
    • shorts-0.044-0.079 Δ-0.034±0.26
    • number_list-0.100-0.129 Δ-0.029±0.25
    • face_reaction0.0740.050 Δ-0.024±0.24
    • weekday_pm-0.068-0.053 Δ+0.015±0.24
    • topic_30.2400.253 Δ+0.013±0.25
    • 10_20m0.0460.059 Δ+0.013±0.25
    • tutorial0.0290.039 Δ+0.010±0.24
    • claim-0.181-0.171 Δ+0.010±0.25
    • object_hero-0.281-0.273 Δ+0.008±0.26
    • 1_4m0.0520.060 Δ+0.008±0.25
    • topic_70.1740.182 Δ+0.008±0.26
    • interview0.1490.156 Δ+0.007±0.24
    • text_dominant0.0530.059 Δ+0.006±0.25
    • topic_0-0.059-0.053 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • story_cold_open0.1920.197 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • weekday_late-0.129-0.124 Δ+0.005±0.27
    • weekend_am0.1410.146 Δ+0.004±0.28
    • vlog-0.093-0.089 Δ+0.004±0.26
    • topic_6-0.302-0.299 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • topic_2-0.184-0.181 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • under_60s0.0720.075 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • 4_10m-0.092-0.089 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • question0.1660.169 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • topic_1-0.076-0.079 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • none0.0710.069 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • before_after0.0800.082 Δ+0.002±0.27
    • list-0.020-0.018 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • topic_40.1710.170 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • commentary-0.024-0.023 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • demo_first-0.048-0.047 Δ+0.000±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.105-0.105 Δ+0.000±0.25
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