Resolved to N/A for multiple reasons.

Artificially inflating an article's likes breaks Substack's terms of service, and also interferes with the function of the like system (indicating how many users like an article). Doing so is torching the commons in the exact same way upvote botting on reddit or review botting on yelp is, and this kind of spam actively makes the internet less usable. It's not just disrespectful to Substack, it's disrespectul to scott specifically. ACX is big enough this probably won't be an issue, but platforms like substack have to implement protections against this kind of manipulation, and creators can face sanctions for having their content artificially boosted. E.g youtube channels can be punished for having their videos like/view botted, even if the person botting isn't the creator.

Said manipulation also breaks the spirit of the market. If the like count reflects how much readers like a post, predicting it is an interesting game, trying to guess general appeal based on a single perspective. But manipulating the like count breaks that, turns it into a game of you versus substack's software, and makes every market like this resolves YES.

@jacksonpolack I totally agree with you!
I have been thinking about how to prevent this, because I don't like the measurement impacting the measure in these cases.
My thoughts are adding a line to the market 'If the measure is being manipulated the outcome is specifically undefined against you' would work best.
If you define specific behaviour when the measure gets manipulated, then it can be abused by anyone who wants that measure. Say someone lost a lot and wants an N/A. If you specifically vow to not define the behaviour beforehand, but rule in a way that's bad for the manipulating party, that should be sufficient.

There were 134 likes on that post around 3 hours ago, now it has 183. I think this question should resolve N/A.

Manipulating likes on other sites is probably against the rules on their side, regardless of the Manifold rules. And on the Manifold side, I think there used to be a mindset that most manipulations were fair game, but it's shifted over time, and many people now think they are not (example poll here). I think we should discourage such things as a general principle.

expecting at least one of these to be similarly manipulated:

Are fake likes for the sake of manipulating this market going to count?

They really shouldn't.

@SimonGrayson Looking at this market, manipulating it is unfortunately fair game

are you gonna bot it?

i may N/A the market if you bot it

@jacksonpolack That is the plan, well not bot it, but open it a few times in inprivate tabs. As on it's own, it had gotten to about 138.
I have committed a bit too much to back out gracefully though 😅

@jacksonpolack Only the rarest, artisinally sourced likes.