viral-score — is this clip worth publishing?
A fixed rubric for scoring a vertical clip's chance of travelling. Its value is that it is fixed: the same clip scores the same on Monday and Friday, and two clips are comparable because they were measured with the same instrument.
So do not substitute your own judgment for the rubric and do not adjust the weights. If a clip has a quality the rubric does not capture, say so in the reasons — but score it with this.
Score candidates before rendering whenever you can. Judging a transcript excerpt costs seconds; editing a clip that gets discarded costs an afternoon.
The ten criteria
Each is scored 0-10.
| # | Criterion | Weight | What earns the points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Opening hook | 20 % | Do the first 3 seconds stop the scroll? Curiosity, surprise, emotion, a strong claim, a striking open |
| 2 | Expected retention | 20 % | Is there a reason to reach the end? Sustained curiosity, pace, resolution, no dead air |
| 3 | Emotional impact | 15 % | Intensity: inspiration, awe, fear, anger, joy, nostalgia, humour, surprise. Indifference scores very low |
| 4 | Shareability | 10 % | Would someone send this to a friend? |
| 5 | Comment-worthiness | 10 % | Does it invite debate or a reply? |
| 6 | Message clarity | 5 % | Does the idea fit in one sentence? |
| 7 | Value density | 5 % | Does every second earn its place? |
| 8 | Originality | 5 % | Is it different or unexpected? |
| 9 | Context independence | 5 % | Does it land without having heard the rest of the episode? |
| 10 | Storytelling | 5 % | Is there a story, a lesson, or a transformation? |
The calculation
Viral Score = ( Hook×0.20 + Retention×0.20 + Emotion×0.15 + Shareability×0.10
+ Comments×0.10 + Clarity×0.05 + Density×0.05
+ Originality×0.05 + Context×0.05 + Storytelling×0.05 ) × 10
Automatic penalties
Subtracted after the formula, and they stack.
| Penalty | Points |
|---|---|
| Weak hook | −10 |
| Slow intro | −8 |
| Needs too much context | −10 |
| Long pauses | −5 |
| Idea too generic | −8 |
| Provokes no emotion | −10 |
| Unsatisfying ending | −5 |
Clamp the final result to [0, 100].
Reading the score
| Range | Verdict |
|---|---|
| 95-100 | Exceptional. Publish immediately |
| 90-94 | Very likely to perform |
| 80-89 | Good candidate. Worth editing and publishing |
| 70-79 | Acceptable, but there are better clips |
| 60-69 | Weak. Publish only if there is no alternative |
| 0-59 | Discard |
Required output, per clip
- Start and end timestamp
- Viral Score (0-100)
- A table with all ten criterion scores
- Reasons behind the scoring
- Main strengths
- Main weaknesses
- Verdict: Publish / Review / Discard
Scoring several clips adds two things: a ranking from highest to lowest, and where the cut-off falls — the point below which publishing stops being worth it.
Applying it well
Score the clip, not the topic. A fascinating episode routinely yields a clip that scores 45.
Judge the hook on the actual first three seconds, not on the idea in the abstract. A clip that opens with a filler word or halfway through a sentence has a weak hook: −10. That is also why the excerpt should start on a sentence boundary — where you cut decides the hook.
Be strict about context independence. If the viewer needs to know who the guest is, or what the previous question was, that is −10.
Do not inflate the mean. If twenty clips all come out above 80, the rubric is not being applied. A healthy batch spreads widely, with few above 85.
Justify every low score with what happens in the clip, at a timestamp — not with a generality.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Do instead |
|---|---|
| Scoring how interesting the subject is | Score this clip's execution; the topic is not the artifact |
| Grading the hook from the full idea | Read only the first three seconds as the viewer receives them |
| Compressing a batch into 78-85 | Use the range; a flat distribution means the instrument is not being used |
| "Weak hook" with no evidence | Quote the opening words and the timestamp |
| Adjusting weights for a clip you like | The weights are the instrument. Argue in the reasons, score with the rubric |
| Rendering first, scoring after | Score transcript candidates, then edit only what survives |
| Skipping the penalties because the total looks low | They are automatic and they stack; a 72 with three penalties is a 49 |
See Also
../shortform-packaging/SKILL.md— the hook line, caption, hashtags and cover for a clip that passed this bar.../shortform-ideation/SKILL.md— inventing the angle, upstream of anything scoreable.../shortform-editing/SKILL.md— executing the edit once a clip is chosen.../shortform-strategy/SKILL.md— what the channel should publish over time, which this feeds with per-clip evidence.