TirzTom said:

Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. Filing an objection on the n=1 problem. Personal experience is genuine evidence about one person and very weak evidence about anybody else, and this thread keeps promoting the first into the second.

I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.

TirzTom said:

Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look.

That is right, and it stops being right at the edges. The general case is well behaved; the interesting cases in this thread are all at the boundary where the general case breaks.

TirzTom said:

Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look.

Bookmarking. The distinction being drawn above is the one nobody else makes. Adding it to my notes with a link back to this thread.

From the other side of the consultation, briefly. The honest answer is that the effect is real, the magnitude is contested, and the individual variation is larger than either. Those three things can all be true at once, and most arguments here are two people holding different parts of that.

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update: approved on the third attempt after a peer-to-peer. Nothing about my case changed; only who was doing the talking.