RATCHET
Skip to main content

Live rebuild of my thumbnail workflow

Experiment #190 · closed · published 8/13/2026, 12:53:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypedemo_first
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypetext_dominant
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formatvlog
  • topicCluster1

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish28,126
  • Days since previous post1.8
  • Channel age at publish (days)265
  • Local publish time8/13/2026, 12:53:00 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)

148

Baseline expected

156

Residual reward

-0.09σ

raw -0.09σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)14821,756170
24h8111,966040
72h11817,405060

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.09σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_1 +0.006, format:vlog +0.004, hook_type:demo_first +0.004.

    • topic_1-0.038-0.033 Δ+0.006±0.24
    • vlog-0.087-0.083 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • demo_first-0.057-0.053 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • 4_10m-0.085-0.082 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • text_dominant0.0430.046 Δ+0.003±0.24
    • none0.0970.096 Δ-0.002±0.26
    • topic_40.1630.162 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • commentary0.0400.039 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • interview0.0960.094 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • story_cold_open0.1750.174 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • list-0.001-0.002 Δ-0.001±0.27
    • 1_4m0.0350.034 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • 10_20m0.0410.040 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • topic_30.1900.189 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.040-0.039 Δ+0.001±0.24
    • claim-0.237-0.238 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • face_reaction0.0920.091 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • weekend_pm0.1770.176 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • tutorial0.0090.010 Δ+0.001±0.24
    • topic_70.1880.187 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • number_list-0.070-0.070 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • question0.2260.226 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • topic_6-0.299-0.300 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • topic_0-0.060-0.060 Δ-0.000±0.24
    • topic_2-0.217-0.217 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • shorts-0.058-0.059 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • weekday_late-0.181-0.180 Δ+0.000±0.27
    • object_hero-0.296-0.296 Δ-0.000±0.25
    • before_after0.0620.063 Δ+0.000±0.26
    • topic_50.0710.071 Δ-0.000±0.26
    • weekend_am0.1550.155 Δ-0.000±0.28
    • 20m_plus-0.103-0.103 Δ-0.000±0.26
← Back to the experiment ledger