ReactLater

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There are situations in an online community, in which you have to act quickly, but these are rare. Depending on your role in the community it may be better to wait some time before you react.

Reasons to react quickly:

to stop a ForestFire (show BusinessAsUsual, DefendEachOther)
if the wiki has LackOfTraffic
...

Reasons to ReactLater:

give other users time and space to contribute (BarnRaising)
give yourself time to cool down if you feel attacked, offended or provoked (give others the chance to DefendEachOther)
...

With wikis, it often is best to ReactLater, much later. Take time to consider your response as you have the entire length of the WikiNow to formulate something cogent. Try only to ImproveTheSilence?.

See also: WarmHelpful, ColdBlanket, ReworkLater. Compare DelayAction.

Discussion

A newcomer won't understand what "later" really means. I think it depends on the average reaction times of the community. If reactions typically come within a few hours, then 6 hours may be considered "later". If reactions typically come within a day, then 2 days may be "later". If two others have commented, then it is later, whatever time it is. On the other hand, if no answers come from third parties, then often this "later" is "too late". Also note that this advice holds only for the primary communicators - the host, the direct partner in discussion - , all others should take the chance to JoinIn?. It's partly for them that the reaction is delayed. Also note that there is the principle of reciprocity / resonance which suggests that you should scale your reactions in time, intensity and volume to that of your partners (the same, slightly more or less) to create a comfortable feeling and to suggest the direction you want to go. -- HelmutLeitner

Like so many other things that I am currently considering, later seems to be context sensitive. -- HansWobbe