Alerts
Reading a spike: baseline, window and the pattern flag
A number on its own is not an alert. Four figures turn it into one — and tell you whether to wake anyone up.
«261 mentions» means nothing until you know what a normal hour looks like. The baseline is that normal — a rolling median of the last week — and the spike is expressed against it: +130% is an hour with more than twice the usual conversation.
The four figures
Alert level says how far above the threshold you are: low, moderate, high. Mentions in the window is the raw count that crossed it. Versus baseline is the multiple. The pattern flag is the one people skip: it says whether the shape of the spike is unusual — a burst from a few accounts, a keyword that never appears with your name, a sentiment that flipped inside the hour.
Who to wake
Moderate and usual: the morning report. Moderate and unusual: the duty analyst, now. High: the spokesperson, with the originating post and its spread path already attached, because the first question will be «where did this start?».
Set the thresholds with the people who will be woken up. A threshold nobody agreed to is a notification everybody mutes.