Stop defacing quotes with brackets
This does not address the primary way I (ab?)use these brackets: to fill in the subject explicitly when the original author refers to it only implicitly.<p>So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write<p>> when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly.<p>The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity.<p>Another solution might be to substitute in the subject and just not indicate it with brackets. That certainly reads easier, but risks hiding a common type of misunderstanding.