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7 rules for the colour grade pass

Experiment #194 · closed · published 8/19/2026, 9:57:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypenumber_list
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypeface_reaction
  • publishSlotweekday_late
  • formatshorts
  • topicCluster7

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish28,709
  • Days since previous post1.3
  • Channel age at publish (days)272
  • Local publish time8/19/2026, 9:57:00 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)

279

Baseline expected

198

Residual reward

+0.57σ

raw 0.57σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)27941,0131141
24h15322,557180
72h22332,8101110

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 0.57σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_7 +0.026, publish_slot:weekday_late +0.021, format:shorts +0.018.

    • topic_70.1600.186 Δ+0.026±0.26
    • weekday_late-0.163-0.142 Δ+0.021±0.27
    • shorts-0.052-0.034 Δ+0.018±0.24
    • 4_10m-0.107-0.092 Δ+0.015±0.25
    • number_list-0.108-0.093 Δ+0.015±0.24
    • face_reaction0.1010.116 Δ+0.015±0.24
    • topic_30.2010.192 Δ-0.009±0.25
    • topic_0-0.050-0.058 Δ-0.008±0.24
    • commentary0.0240.017 Δ-0.007±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.033-0.040 Δ-0.007±0.23
    • 20m_plus-0.118-0.123 Δ-0.005±0.25
    • before_after0.0280.023 Δ-0.005±0.26
    • claim-0.233-0.237 Δ-0.005±0.24
    • object_hero-0.288-0.292 Δ-0.005±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.093-0.097 Δ-0.004±0.24
    • weekend_pm0.1130.110 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • 1_4m0.0390.035 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • contrarian-0.044-0.047 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • topic_6-0.279-0.282 Δ-0.003±0.26
    • topic_40.1490.146 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • 10_20m0.0510.049 Δ-0.003±0.24
    • demo_first-0.049-0.052 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • weekend_am0.1570.155 Δ-0.002±0.28
    • vlog-0.077-0.079 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • tutorial0.0180.016 Δ-0.002±0.24
    • topic_1-0.022-0.020 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • story_cold_open0.1780.179 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • under_60s0.1150.117 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • topic_2-0.259-0.260 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • list0.0080.008 Δ-0.001±0.27
    • interview0.0600.059 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • question0.2360.235 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • topic_50.0800.081 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • text_dominant0.0650.064 Δ-0.001±0.24
    • none0.0750.075 Δ+0.000±0.25
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