This market resolves YES if the following two conditions are met:
Isaac King confirms that he had some sneaky plan in the Whales vs. Minnows market, or he does something that is clearly an attempt to execute such a plan. A "sneaky plan" must be surprising and non-obvious. "I thought I could buy enough shares to overcome the minnows", "I thought another whale would jump in and help me", or any other plan that uses the natural mechanics of the market in a straightforward way doesn't count, even if Isaac expected it to happen last minute to pounce on the minnows. Examples of a sneaky plan would include taking out a secret loan from @NinthCause (or any similar pact that would metaphorically fit the description in this poem: https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/will-the-whales-win-this-market#OglNi20vSFIk6EvS70nZ), paying people to bet NO and then switch to YES last minute, or manipulating the mechanics of the market in an unusual, unintuitive way that people didn't see coming.
Minnows ultimately win the market because they overcame Isaac's plan. This could be by getting enough points that his plan wasn't enough to overcome it, or by performing some specific action to prevent him from executing it (e.g., convincing someone not to give him a loan or paying people to stay on Team NO). If Isaac's plan is thwarted by some outside factor (e.g., he had a plan involving alt accounts that was thwarted by Manifold's new rules), it doesn't count, unless it is clear that the minnows would have been able to thwart it anyway.
Note:
Minnows MUST win the WvM market for this to resolve YES. If they lose even after thwarted some plan of Isaac's, then that means that at best they only thwarted Plan A or delayed the inevitable.
If Isaac's plan required the market to stay open for longer, then minnows will be considered to have thwarted it, since the current procedure for resolving the market probably wouldn't be in place if it wasn't for minnows arguing that the market should close earlier.
The first criterion here is similar to the one used in this market: /CodeandSolder/does-isaac-have-a-trick-up-his-slee. However, it is not identical. In particular, Isaac does not actually have to do something "unexpected and interesting" for that criterion to be met - it is enough that he planned to do something, even if he never attempted to execute it since minnows had already foiled it.
Some people have already offered to sell their NO shares if they are paid to do so. If Isaac takes them up on their offer, that is not enough to meet the first criterion, unless he already had plans to do this with a lot of people beforehand.
I will use my best judgement, but if there is sufficient disagreement over whether Isaac's plan should count as "sneaky" or not, I may resolve this to PROB.
If Isaac doesn't have a sneaky plan, this resolves NO, not N/A.
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One possibility I didn't account for in the description was what will happen if the WvM market resolves N/A. I think this is unlikely, but it is probably a little more likely now than it was when I made the market. Since I stated that minnows have to win the market for this to resolve YES, I don't think I can resolve it YES if the WvM market resolves N/A, since that would mean that no one won. On the other hand, it obviously doesn't seem correct to say that minnows didn't thwart Isaac's plan if they end up way ahead in the point totals like they are now, even if the market resolves N/A rather than minnows winning. So, if the WvM market resolves N/A, I will resolve this one to N/A as well.
Seems like the probability of this hasn't been corrected yet for the massive gain minnows have made. Since Isaac did indeed pull off a sneaky plan by buying off an army of accounts to dwindle the minnows' numbers, we have definitely met condition one. And the plan actually worked without being thwarted by outside factors, so if minnows in fact win, it means they thwarted the plan with the last-minute giant recruiting push.
In other words, this is now pretty much guaranteed to resolve YES iff the Whales vs. Minnows market resolves NO.
Looks like there's another sneaky plan: https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/will-the-whales-win-this-market#5A41LjloguD2BiIYn7c1
@CodeandSolder As I understand it, Isaac's plan is to get some people from an EA Facebook group to help him by promising to increase their donations. That would count as "thwarted" if either of the following happens:
He successfully recruits EAs to help him win the market, but it isn't enough, and Team Minnow still wins.
Minnows somehow sabotage the EA recruitment itself. For example, if someone on the minnow side joined the Facebook group and convinced people who otherwise might have joined that Isaac's plan was a bad investment.
What would not count as thwarting the plan is:
The plan actually works, and whales win the market.
The plan fails because Isaac didn't manage to convince enough people to help him (since he said that the plan requires 2-3 people, this would happen if he gets no one or only gets one person), but this happens organically, without minnow interference. In other words, the plan was thwarted by people's unwillingness to participate, not the actions of minnows. There is a bit of a possible edge case here, where someone might decide not to participate, but only because they think it looks too difficult to beat the minnows. In that case, I would consider the plan thwarted by minnows as long as it is clear that this is the main reason why someone chose not to participate, and Isaac would have had enough people if this person had participated.
Of course, even if this plan fails organically, it's still possible that Isaac has another plan up his sleeve that minnows could thwart. The only outcome that definitely guarantees a NO resolution here is whales winning the market.
@JosephNoonan Tempted to come up with more sneaky plans just to see more of these extremely well laid-out analyses.