Signal 1: Chat Velocity. The single highest-weighted signal across all major platforms in 2026.

Definition: messages per minute, normalized against current concurrent viewer count.

Healthy thresholds:

• 1-5% of CCV in messages per minute = healthy engagement
• Under 1% = algorithm reads as low-engagement, downranks
• Over 5% = algorithm reads as high-engagement, amplifies

Practical math: 50 CCV stream with 1.5 messages per minute = 3% velocity = healthy. Same CCV with 0.5 messages per minute = 1% velocity = at the boundary, slight downrank risk.

Engineering it upward:

• Greet every new viewer by name (chat-first content tactic)
• Ask one question per 10 minutes
• Repeat chat messages on stream
• Run chat-driven decisions (chat votes on next game/topic)
• Call out repeat chatters

Anti-patterns: bot chat (filtered out by Layer 1), command spam from chatbots (counted but de-weighted), engagement bait that gets minimal response (worse than no engagement attempt).

Chat velocity engineering is the highest-leverage daily discipline.