How to Write Mastodon Instance Rules and a Welcome from a Community Brief
Instance pages invent blocklists. Rules and welcome from the brief only.
The matching generator is the Mastodon Instance Rules and Welcome from a Community Brief (Not Captions) (Mastodon Instance Rules And Welcome From Community Brief Not Captions) prompt. Browse related cards in the PromptDig library (Browse more prompts). When a filled run survives, share the version you actually use (Share a prompt).
Honor the welcome character cap
Write Mastodon instance rules and a welcome post from a community brief. Not a caption engine; never invent federation blocks. Start by filling Inputs, not by asking the model to remember last week's run. If a field is blank, write NONE or NOT IN INPUTS and leave it blank through Generate. The card is built so the model cannot honestly invent a number, owner, URL, or command that you did not paste.
Paste these fields before you hit run:
Community brief (audience, allowed/disallowed, moderation notes): [Brief]
Instance name I lock: [Name]
Character cap for welcome: [Cap or 500]
Federation notes I may print (or NONE): [Federation]
Words I must not use: [Banned]
What I must never invent: [Never]
Output format: [Format]
Language: [Lang]
Max rules: [Max]
That inventory is the honesty ledger. Anything that does not appear there is forbidden in the draft. If you catch yourself adding a nice-to-have after the run, you are no longer using the card. You are ghostwriting. Put the extra fact in Inputs and run again.
List allowed and disallowed topics from Brief
Generate is numbered on purpose. Do not skip a step because the first paragraph looked done. The early steps exist to stop later prose from smuggling claims.
Walk the Generate list in order:
- Honesty ledger: Brief items, Name, Cap, Federation status, Lang, Max. Forbidden: invented blocklists, captions, member counts.
- Topic map: allowed vs disallowed from Brief or NOT IN INPUTS.
- Pack: welcome under Cap, up to Max rules. Federation paragraph only if Federation not NONE.
- Char count: welcome characters vs Cap.
- Refuse list: invented domain blocks, invented volunteer emails, invented hashtag prompts.
- Diff notes: Banned/Never cuts. Bio/pinned-post caption style moved to refuse.
- Federation note: if Federation NONE write federation policy NOT IN INPUTS.
- Compliance pass: Banned/Never hits. Rule count vs Max. Gaps list of five. Format as Format.
If a step asks for a version lock, quote the version from Inputs in the output. If a step asks for a refuse list, keep the refuse list in the published artifact, not in a sidebar you delete. Reviewers should see what the model was not allowed to do.
Refuse invented domain blocks
Most failures are the same shape: a missing field gets a confident fill. A conversion rate appears. A Gradle task appears. A flash point appears. A caption appears on a job that asked for slide text only. Your review is to search the draft for numbers, names, and commands, then grep Inputs. No match means cut.
Honor the constraints as hard stops, not vibes:
- Instance rules and welcome from Brief only. Not captions and not a profile bio card.
- Never invent federation blocks or member counts.
- Honor Cap and Max.
- No emojis.
When the card says not legal advice, not certification, not an exam dump, or not a caption engine, that sentence belongs at the top of the output. Deleting it to look more finished is how you inherit risk.
Leave federation policy blank when Federation is NONE
Finish with the compliance pass the prompt already asks for. Quote the banned-word hits. Cut them. Print character counts when the job has a cap. Print word counts when the job has a budget. List gaps as gaps. Five missing facts are more useful than one smooth paragraph.
Tags on the card (mastodon instance welcome, not captions, mastodon rules welcome) are a reminder of the job shape, not an invitation to wander into a neighboring cluster. If you need a different surface, open a different PromptDig card rather than stretching this one.
Fill the card, then run
Replace every bracket. Run on ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Read the ledger first, then the artifact. If the model invents a commit, KPI, DOI, PEL, bid, or logo, discard the run. Tighten Inputs. Run again. Share the filled card that survived, not the first draft that sounded done.