As a Site Builder, it is imperative to understand the extent of the authority and permissions you've been granted with your site(s). The nature of your role gives you considerable access to the inner workings of not just SiteFarm but the underlying framework of Drupal as well. This includes the ability to enable any number of modules yourself.
In many cases, enabling modules is a recommended course; the training documentation we offer explicitly instructs you to do so and provides directions on their configuration and recommended use. In other instances, the list of modules included in the Extend section will include modules labeled "Experimental" and we strongly recommend avoiding these unless you only plan to explore it in a sandbox setting.
What is an "Experimental" module?
Modules with this label are very early draft or "alpha" versions of what the final module might look and feel like. These modules are released for a variety of reasons: share code in case other developers want to contribute time to helping improve them, allow for some early showcasing, get feedback from users, and so on. Experimental modules are incomplete, buggy, and subject to change.
Why are "Experimental" modules included?
You would think it would be wiser to not add them, yes? The Drupal community, which emphasizes community-driven, open-source development, shares early work to show its progress on major community initiatives and bundles them with major Drupal releases. You'll note that we hide modules and the ability to enable or disable them from everyone except Site Builders. This is to help safeguard your site's integrity and discourage enabling something that might have a negative influence on your site.
If SiteFarm has enabled a module labeled "Experimental" it is only after considerable testing and efforts to integrate it into the entire platform to work with our code and branding theme.
Why you should avoid "Experimental" modules
In short, enabling modules that labeled "Experimental" or that aren't specifically mentioned in our documentation introduces a level of instability and risk that could endanger your entire site and its content to a degree that we would consider it unrecoverable. If you must explore a module that meets this description ONLY do so in a sandbox site you never plan to launch to the web, and don't do so on a site already live without extensive testing.
An Example
A client submitted a ticket to the SiteFarm team reporting that block titles and their relative positions were behaving oddly. We eliminated a variety of possible causes (custom sub-theme, a recent patch release, platform issues, console bug messages) but only after a combined total of three hours of developer time did we discover the person had used their Site Builder permissions to enable the Experimental Layout Builder module on a site they would eventually intend to go live to the web. The Layout Builder module, while technically stable, relies on underlying dependencies that are still labeled "Experimental". And, we have not yet done any of the necessary work to integrate this code into the SiteFarm platform; it won't work natively just by turning it on.
By enabling the module, the client unknowingly affected the following areas of their site:
Entity form display
block_content.sf_basic.default
block_content.sf_focal_link.default
block_content.sf_focus_box.default
block_content.sf_hero_banner.default
block_content.sf_image_banner.default
block_content.sf_marketing_highlight.default
block_content.sf_marketing_highlight_horizntl.default
node.landing_page.default
node.sf_article.default
node.sf_event.default
node.sf_page.default
node.sf_person.default
node.sf_photo_gallery.default
node.webform.default
taxonomy_term.sf_article_category.default
taxonomy_term.sf_branding.default
taxonomy_term.sf_event_type.default
taxonomy_term.sf_photo_gallery_categories.default
Entity view display
Basic block custom blocks
Focal Link custom blocks
Focus Box custom blocks
Hero Banner custom blocks
Image Banner custom blocks
Marketing Highlight custom blocks
Marketing Highlight - Horizontal custom blocks
Article content items
Event content items
Basic Page content items
Person content items
Photo Gallery content items
Article Categories taxonomy terms
Branding taxonomy terms
Event Category taxonomy terms
Photo Gallery Categories taxonomy terms
Without realizing it, they had borked almost every single element in their site. Sadly, it was irreversible and we had to delete the site and instantiate a new one for them.
Your Site Builder role includes considerable access; please use it thoughtfully and with caution. If at any point you have questions about a module in the list you're interested in using, we're always on hand to assist and clarify. Submit a ticket to the SiteFarm team and we'd be happy to help you.