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I nearly quit my audio chain

Experiment #97 · closed · published 4/5/2026, 9:55:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypestory_cold_open
  • lengthBucket1_4m
  • thumbnailArchetypetext_dominant
  • publishSlotweekend_pm
  • formatcommentary
  • topicCluster1

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish18,542
  • Days since previous post1.2
  • Channel age at publish (days)136
  • Local publish time4/5/2026, 9:55:00 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)

261

Baseline expected

140

Residual reward

+1.04σ

raw 1.04σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)26113,7031131
24h1447,536170
72h20910,9621100

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 1.04σ. Moved: format:commentary +0.042, hook_type:story_cold_open +0.036, publish_slot:weekend_pm +0.035.

    • commentary-0.226-0.185 Δ+0.042±0.29
    • story_cold_open0.2960.332 Δ+0.036±0.29
    • weekend_pm0.2180.253 Δ+0.035±0.30
    • topic_1-0.095-0.065 Δ+0.030±0.29
    • 1_4m0.0290.052 Δ+0.023±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0570.076 Δ+0.020±0.27
    • topic_6-0.290-0.306 Δ-0.016±0.37
    • 10_20m0.0570.044 Δ-0.013±0.28
    • vlog-0.023-0.037 Δ-0.013±0.29
    • weekend_am0.1940.183 Δ-0.011±0.32
    • claim0.0250.015 Δ-0.011±0.30
    • topic_40.1720.183 Δ+0.011±0.28
    • interview0.2020.192 Δ-0.010±0.29
    • number_list-0.342-0.352 Δ-0.010±0.29
    • topic_0-0.110-0.120 Δ-0.010±0.29
    • topic_70.3040.295 Δ-0.009±0.34
    • weekday_late-0.265-0.273 Δ-0.009±0.29
    • object_hero-0.226-0.235 Δ-0.009±0.29
    • contrarian-0.022-0.030 Δ-0.008±0.30
    • topic_2-0.175-0.182 Δ-0.007±0.29
    • list-0.161-0.168 Δ-0.007±0.31
    • weekday_pm-0.084-0.090 Δ-0.006±0.27
    • topic_30.2770.283 Δ+0.006±0.31
    • before_after0.0350.029 Δ-0.006±0.32
    • under_60s0.1030.098 Δ-0.005±0.30
    • weekday_am-0.077-0.082 Δ-0.005±0.29
    • tutorial0.0840.079 Δ-0.005±0.28
    • face_reaction0.0860.082 Δ-0.004±0.27
    • 4_10m-0.223-0.227 Δ-0.004±0.29
    • 20m_plus0.0200.024 Δ+0.003±0.31
    • shorts0.1110.108 Δ-0.003±0.29
    • none0.0350.038 Δ+0.002±0.29
    • demo_first-0.105-0.106 Δ-0.002±0.28
    • question0.1340.133 Δ-0.002±0.29
    • topic_5-0.096-0.098 Δ-0.001±0.33
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