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I nearly quit shooting in one take

Experiment #185 · closed · published 8/7/2026, 4:07:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypestory_cold_open
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypeobject_hero
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formattutorial
  • topicCluster6

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish27,601
  • Days since previous post2.4
  • Channel age at publish (days)259
  • Local publish time8/7/2026, 4:07:00 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)

72

Baseline expected

177

Residual reward

-1.50σ

raw -1.50σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)7237,800040
24h4020,790020
72h5830,240030

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 1.50σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_6 -0.045, length_bucket:20m_plus -0.028, thumbnail_archetype:object_hero -0.027.

    • topic_6-0.230-0.275 Δ-0.045±0.26
    • 20m_plus-0.041-0.069 Δ-0.028±0.26
    • object_hero-0.263-0.290 Δ-0.027±0.25
    • story_cold_open0.1860.162 Δ-0.024±0.25
    • tutorial0.0270.004 Δ-0.024±0.24
    • weekday_pm-0.032-0.050 Δ-0.018±0.24
    • list-0.042-0.028 Δ+0.014±0.27
    • topic_2-0.180-0.168 Δ+0.012±0.25
    • number_list-0.111-0.100 Δ+0.012±0.25
    • before_after0.0580.069 Δ+0.011±0.27
    • topic_0-0.092-0.083 Δ+0.009±0.24
    • under_60s0.0980.107 Δ+0.009±0.25
    • topic_1-0.043-0.035 Δ+0.009±0.24
    • face_reaction0.0870.094 Δ+0.008±0.24
    • claim-0.255-0.248 Δ+0.007±0.24
    • topic_30.1730.180 Δ+0.007±0.25
    • text_dominant0.0490.056 Δ+0.007±0.24
    • weekday_late-0.195-0.188 Δ+0.007±0.27
    • 10_20m0.0270.034 Δ+0.007±0.25
    • question0.2400.246 Δ+0.007±0.25
    • shorts-0.021-0.016 Δ+0.006±0.25
    • weekend_pm0.2110.217 Δ+0.005±0.26
    • 4_10m-0.095-0.090 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • 1_4m0.0250.029 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • topic_50.0530.057 Δ+0.004±0.26
    • weekend_am0.1490.153 Δ+0.004±0.28
    • vlog-0.071-0.068 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • contrarian-0.001-0.003 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • topic_70.1720.175 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • demo_first-0.045-0.047 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • interview0.0890.087 Δ-0.002±0.24
    • none0.0830.081 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • topic_40.1600.159 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • commentary0.0300.031 Δ+0.000±0.25
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