Yesterday, the iThemes folks graciously hosted me for a webinar. I had the opportunity to demonstrate some of the more anticipated features of WordPress 3.0 (due out next month). In the process, I also expressed some of the philosophies in the WordPress community around contributing and shaping the most popular publishing platform on the web.

Some of my answers to questions late in the webinar are directed specifically toward the fringe elements of the community who approach the project from a combative perspective choosing to take pot shots at people and Automattic specifically while never doing a damn thing to push the platform forward. While I’ve left names out of the webinar and this post, the message is clear: if you want to have credibility in the community, learn how to be constructive and own the features and elements you want to see.

But the webinar was not a political statement. In fact, most of it was a hands on demonstration of the new twentyten default theme in WordPress 3.0, the custom taxonomy and post type features which bring WordPress into approximate parity with other content management systems, as well as a preview of “The Merge” – the combination of WordPress MU and WordPress.

Thanks again to the folks over at iThemes. If you missed the Webinar, here it is. Sorry, iPhone and iPad users…. it’s Flash. ;)

WordPress 3.0 Preview with Aaron Brazell from WebDesign.com on Vimeo.