<SYSTEM_TASK:>
Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
<END_TASK>
<USER_TASK:>
Description:
 def strip_instructions(text):
 """ Remove instructional HTML comment tags inserted by RTV. We used to use # to annotate comments, but it conflicted with the header tag for markdown, which some people use to format their posts. """

        # Pattern can span multiple lines, allows dot to match newline chars
        flags = re.MULTILINE | re.DOTALL
        pattern = '<!--{token}(.*?){token}-->'.format(token=TOKEN)
        text = re.sub(pattern, '', text, flags=flags)
        return re.sub(r'\A[\s\n]*\n', '', text, flags=flags).rstrip()