If it's an assemble-it-all-at-once pile, yeah, you want to let it sit for 3-10 days before turning each time. The timing depends on how fast it heats up. You want it to heat up, and as it passes the peak and begins to cool, you want to turn it to bring the material in the center to the outside, and the outer material to the inside. You add water only if you find dry patches, to bring it all to the moisture level of a wrung-out sponge.
I make an as-you-go pile (actually, in a bin), where I start with a layer of mulch, add kitchen and garden waste as I generate them, water each layer and cover with mulch as needed. I find I never get around to turning my compost, but it's done in 2 months in the summer and a little longer in the winter. I use nursery flats to sift out the coarsest stuff. I've made at least 300 gallons of compost a year for the past 2-3 years.
Sometimes when my bins get too dry, I get ants. That's the only time I water, aside from when I build the pile. When I started making compost, it was more common for it to be too wet, which is harder to fix than too-dry: incorporate more mulchy materials.
If it's finished compost (the original materials have turned into brownish good-smelling particles), then you can either let it sit or -- better -- add it to garden beds. Watering finished compost may make it all mucky, but if it gets rained on while sitting on garden beds, all the good stuff will filter into the soil.
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