Greetings, practitioners.

The Practitioner's Path is the formal structure for rank advancement within the Guild of the ROSE. Like a Martial Arts dojo, all members of the Guild are on the Path system by default. Members start at Level 0.

The Path is designed to be difficult. For an achievement to mean something, it must require effort and dedication.

Advancing through the ranks involves multiple components.

1. Level 1 requires 3 Feature badges
2. Level 2 requires 3 Feature badges, 3 Workshop badges, and 3 Test badges
3. Additional levels have the same requirements as Level 2

To advance to a rank, the practitioner must achieve the requirements listed at that rank.

Workshop Badges

A Workshop Badge represents the passing of a Workshop. At the introductory levels of the Path, full attendance and reasonable completion of assignments will likely be enough for a badge. In the future, after we have many members at a higher Path level, instructors will be encouraged to add more difficult hurdles, such as tests or projects, for those in need of a challenge.

Feature Badges

A Feature Badge represents a Feature on the Character Sheet that you have acquired. Often, you do not need to completely acquire a Feature to get a Feature Badge, you simply need to have made impressive progress.

Note. Recall that in the Character Sheet framework, a Feature is an inverted Bug — a problem that you've identified in your life.

Tests

Each level past Level 1 will require passing three tests, each one associated with a Guild vision: Eudaimonia, Community, Service. The tests may look very different from each other in practice, and will vary from rank to rank (and from person to person). Some tests may be classic written exams. Some tests may require that a certain behavior be performed daily for X consecutive days (e.g. meditating, journaling, refraining from using certain words, giving compliments, making predictions on Metaculus). A test may be quite open-ended: "serve your community in a visible and meaningful way." It will be the responsibility of the testing board to craft and calibrate tests.

The Eudaimonia test will focus on self improvement. It will tend to be a test of knowledge or skill, or the practice of a self improvement-oriented habit for a period of time. This test is the most likely of the three to be a written exam. For the introductory levels of the Path system, acquiring your three Feature Badges will likely be enough for passing this exam.

The Community test, at the beginning levels, will be an assessment of the practitioner's demonstration of the Values of ROSE: Cooperation, Honesty, Effectiveness, Empathy, and Courage. Be a good citizen of the organization: be helpful, don't lie, work hard, be considerate, and do what's right.

The Service test will be the same for every level: take action to improve your community and/or the world. When testing for your first rank you may make the Guild the focus of your project, to practice. Afterwards you will be expected to do something for people outside of the Guild.

Low-level Service acts might look like:

• building a small website to transparently aggregate and disseminate important information
• designing a minor useful object and giving the schematics away
• shoveling the snow from all the sidewalks on your street for a winter

Mid to High-level Service acts might look like:

• improving the lives of people you know in a measurable way, with their consent
• holding a demanding "voluntary office" in your life, such as unpaid martial arts instructor, school board member, local professional society board member, etc
• completing a high-effort local project; the sort of thing that an Eagle Scout would be required to do

Once we have a core of members at, say, Level 3, then those people can design tests for Level 4. But as of now, we don't know what Level 4 even looks like, or what we will be capable of as a group at that point.

The Testing Board

The Testing Board consists of three volunteers who create and maintain the tests, provide infrastructure for practitioners, and proctor tests where applicable.

It would be ideal for the Testing Board members to always be drawn from the highest ranks, but until we have enough Level 1 members willing to be the Testing Board, this will consist of Council members.

Benefits

Advancing in the Path system unlocks additional abilities within the Guild. Abilities are cumulative — a Level 1 member retains access to all Level 0 abilities.

Note. This section is incomplete and will be extended as the Guild grows.

Level 0 members can attend workshops, join a cohort, and join interest groups. They also have access to the member-only Guild channels (those listed under The Garden of the ROSE in Discord).

Level 1 members can create one interest group. DM Raven#8336 to create yours.

Conclusion

To begin the Path, engage in our weekly Workshops to acquire Workshop Badges. To acquire Feature Badges, attend our monthly Level Up sessions and fill out the monthly check-in form in the pre-workshop assignment. The Testing Board reviews these form submissions weekly, and will provide feedback on your progress.

Once you believe you have made enough progress, ping @testing-board on Discord in #the-winding-path. We will then do a final review of your Feature reports (we meet every Friday), and work with you on constructing your tests.