It's not well explained in the version I linked (apologies, I should have looked for a clearer version). The point of the story when I originally heard it is t

It's not well explained in the version I linked (apologies, I should have looked for a clearer version). The point of the story when I originally heard it is that no one has SEEN the Emperor's nose. So any statistical function (like averaging) of estimates is totally useless as they are all guesses. No one has seen 'papers submitted under these circumstances' so no amount of 'crowd wisdom' will make any difference. Also, as an aside the idea that 'the crowd will only answer the question they can answer' is ... bizarre. People will answer anything you ask them, and you have no way to know if they are just making it up.