I’d like to emphasize that these questions on the fediverse/lemmy are always targeted at the admins/hosters of the instance (server) you signed up at.

There is an adjustment here. No one owns this space or decides the rules that define it as a whole. Not even the developers.

Your instance will have its rules/culture/vibes, but that’s just one entry-point here.

Edit: wording

It seems you’ve worked it out, but for others coming across this, it’s an instance specific setting. Whoever is running your instance can decide if users can make their own communities. Most instances let users create communities, including yours.

One caveat is that you can only create a community on the instance your account is on. This is because functionality to create communities on other instances hasn’t been implemented yet.

Though you can moderate a community on another instance, so a workaround is creating an account on another instance you want to create a community on, use it to create a community, then use it to assign your main account as moderator.

Yes you are, but the recommendation is usually to join established community to avoid having you “shouting into the void”.

Did you have a look at the pinned post on !communitypromo@lemmy.ca ? This should already give you a list of various established communities.

I have not but I will now, thanks Blaze.