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How much of a change is allowed in questions that have been downvoted? I have seen the policy on editing questions with existing answers When is an edit not an edit any more? but this does not seem to apply to questions that have no answers yet.

I am new to the SE and do not yet have the hang of asking questions in the correct wording. Because of this I attract downvotes right away. Sometimes I am lucky to get a comment telling me only it was a bad question. I clearly understand they thought it was a bad question, hence the downvote. My motivation to ask the question has not changed, so I try to edit the question to better focus the scope and remove extraneous details in order to attract the knowledgeable answers.

My original question in my head is unchanged, I am only editing to more clearly communicate this in the appropriate format of the community. Can I make sweeping edits if no one has answered and there are only negative comments? Or should I just delete the question and try again?

I emphasize that I want to learn and obtain quality answers to my questions, this naturally follows from clear and concise questions.

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Of course you, as the original poster, can make large edits to an unanswered question. I'd even consider it commendable to try to make a question more suitable after downvotes.

Even after a question has answers, you can still edit your question, so long as the spirit of the question remains the same: you're still basically asking for the same information as before.

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    As long as the questions has no answers, removal => rewriting => new post is also an option. This might be frowned upon though, I'm not sure about what's SE compliant in this.
    – Mast
    Apr 23, 2015 at 11:17

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