New: Design your own US president

Fed up with the flaws of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain?

Here's your chance to set things right.

An innovative website using Wikipedia-like collaborative software has given people around the world to design the perfect candidate for the US presidency.

On www.Wikicandidate08.com, contributors in the quest for the ideal person to run America over the next four years can edit or over-write previous entries, changing the sex, name, photo and political agenda and response to events in the news.

Wikicandidate has kicked off proceedings with an imaginary candidate based on a real-life American satirical comedian, Stephen Colbert.

According to the site's bio, Colbert plays cello and mandolin and wants to fix climate change, global poverty and food insecurity.

The project has a serious goal, the British weekly New Scientist reports.

It has been launched by researchers at Cornell University in New York, who want to explore the benefits and disadvantages of "online civic participation" in election year.

If enough people take part, the profile of the candidate that eventually emerges "will act as a wish list" of the characteristics that voters desire in a US president, they hope.

(Agencies)

受够了奥巴马、希拉里和麦凯恩的坏毛病？

现在你有机会来纠正了！

日前，一个颇有创新精神的“维基”网站为世界各地的人们提供了一个设计心目中完美美国总统候选人的机会。

想找到心目中理想总统人选的人可登陆Wikicandidate08.com网站，编辑或改写已有的“候选人”资料，比如性别、姓名、照片、施政纲领以及对新闻事件的回应等。

Wikicandidate网站上最初创建的条目是以美国讽刺喜剧演员斯蒂芬·科尔伯特为原型的一个虚拟候选人。

根据该网站上的个人简介，科尔伯特会演奏大提琴和曼陀林（一种琵琶乐器），而且致力于解决气候变化、全球贫困及食品安全等问题。

据《英国新科学家》周刊报道，该活动还有一个很严肃的目的。

该活动由纽约康奈尔大学的研究人员发起，其中一个目的就是研究大选之年“公民网上参与”的利与弊。

研究人员希望，如果参与该活动的人足够多，最终被“设计成型”的候选人的资质“将能为选民们期待总统所应具备的资质”提供参考。

Vocabulary:

fed up with:受够了……（I'm fed up with all this argument. 我受够了这种争论。）

(news from Chinadaily)