Hometown (v1.0.5 and higher) allows you to specify a different max toot characters than the original 500 characters limit in Mastodon.
Why
Instances have different goals from one to another, some would like to be able to write more content in each messages. This features enable admins to tailor the max allow characters in toots to their users need.
How
You'll need to add the following lines in your .env.production file:
# Maximum allowed character count
MAX_TOOT_CHARS=500
Just replace 500 by the limit you want and recompile the assets:
sudo su - mastodon
cd live
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile
exit
Then restart Hometown:
sudo systemctl restart mastodon-streaming.service mastodon-sidekiq.service mastodon-web.service
Who
This feature was backported from glitch-soc by Sable.