I have several times seen people have an issue when asking story identification questions, simply put the details they remember from the story don't make the genre plain to those reading the question, i.e. they don't remember any clearly fantastical elements of the tale. Now I don't always know which genre (or subgenre) a story falls into because I often remember a small snippet and have the feeling that I enjoyed the book its in without much more context, like this question about Monstrous Regiment. However I absolutely know that any story I'm looking for must be either science fiction or possibly fantasy because I quite literally don't read any other fiction and never have. So in theory I know any story ID question I ask fits the genre restrictions of the site but does that make them on-topic or does the lack of details within the question that point to a genre preclude them?
Also if a lack of genre clues does make a question off-topic is there a way to state that you're sure it is a genre appropriate story, for example suggesting a specific genre, or is that counterproductive?