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Against my audio chain

Experiment #187 · closed · published 8/8/2026, 4:47:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypecontrarian
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypenone
  • publishSlotweekend_pm
  • formatshorts
  • topicCluster2

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish27,692
  • Days since previous post0.3
  • Channel age at publish (days)260
  • Local publish time8/8/2026, 4:47:00 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)

132

Baseline expected

204

Residual reward

-0.73σ

raw -0.73σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)13269,300170
24h7338,115040
72h10655,440050

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.73σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_2 -0.021, format:shorts -0.021, publish_slot:weekend_pm -0.019.

    • topic_2-0.166-0.187 Δ-0.021±0.25
    • shorts-0.038-0.058 Δ-0.021±0.25
    • weekend_pm0.2010.182 Δ-0.019±0.26
    • 20m_plus-0.068-0.087 Δ-0.019±0.26
    • contrarian-0.024-0.040 Δ-0.016±0.25
    • none0.0860.072 Δ-0.014±0.26
    • before_after0.0510.057 Δ+0.007±0.26
    • vlog-0.066-0.059 Δ+0.006±0.25
    • topic_50.0640.071 Δ+0.006±0.26
    • topic_30.1830.188 Δ+0.006±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.046-0.041 Δ+0.005±0.24
    • weekday_late-0.187-0.182 Δ+0.005±0.27
    • 4_10m-0.086-0.082 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • story_cold_open0.1670.172 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • under_60s0.0930.098 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • tutorial0.0060.010 Δ+0.004±0.24
    • commentary0.0360.040 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • question0.2520.256 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • topic_0-0.081-0.077 Δ+0.003±0.24
    • demo_first-0.050-0.054 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.119-0.116 Δ+0.003±0.24
    • number_list-0.097-0.094 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • topic_70.1830.186 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • 10_20m0.0360.039 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • topic_40.1590.156 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • text_dominant0.0580.061 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • claim-0.244-0.241 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • interview0.0900.092 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • 1_4m0.0290.031 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • face_reaction0.0950.094 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • list-0.024-0.025 Δ-0.001±0.27
    • topic_6-0.301-0.301 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • topic_1-0.037-0.037 Δ-0.000±0.24
    • object_hero-0.285-0.285 Δ+0.000±0.25
    • weekend_am0.1550.155 Δ+0.000±0.28
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