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You are wrong about my thumbnail workflow

Experiment #179 · closed · published 7/30/2026, 10:32:00 AM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypeclaim
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypebefore_after
  • publishSlotweekday_am
  • formatcommentary
  • topicCluster2

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish26,880
  • Days since previous post1.9
  • Channel age at publish (days)251
  • Local publish time7/30/2026, 10:32:00 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)

80

Baseline expected

136

Residual reward

-0.88σ

raw -0.88σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)8042,000040
24h4423,100020
72h6433,600030

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.88σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_2 -0.008, length_bucket:20m_plus -0.008, hook_type:claim -0.007.

    • topic_2-0.188-0.196 Δ-0.008±0.26
    • 20m_plus-0.116-0.123 Δ-0.008±0.26
    • claim-0.183-0.190 Δ-0.007±0.25
    • before_after0.0310.023 Δ-0.007±0.27
    • commentary-0.007-0.014 Δ-0.007±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.135-0.141 Δ-0.006±0.25
    • topic_70.1880.192 Δ+0.004±0.26
    • topic_6-0.288-0.285 Δ+0.003±0.27
    • interview0.1230.125 Δ+0.003±0.24
    • weekday_late-0.126-0.124 Δ+0.002±0.27
    • topic_0-0.073-0.075 Δ-0.002±0.24
    • story_cold_open0.2040.206 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • contrarian0.0010.003 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • 4_10m-0.099-0.097 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • weekend_pm0.1480.146 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • face_reaction0.0540.056 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • text_dominant0.0600.061 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • none0.1070.109 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • tutorial0.0470.049 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • weekend_am0.1450.146 Δ+0.001±0.28
    • shorts-0.076-0.075 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.039-0.038 Δ+0.001±0.24
    • 1_4m0.0720.073 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • 10_20m0.0490.051 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • topic_5-0.013-0.012 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • vlog-0.066-0.067 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • under_60s0.0850.086 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • topic_40.1670.166 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • topic_1-0.041-0.040 Δ+0.001±0.24
    • number_list-0.137-0.136 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • question0.1470.148 Δ+0.000±0.26
    • demo_first-0.041-0.041 Δ+0.000±0.25
    • object_hero-0.260-0.260 Δ+0.000±0.26
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