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.So quoting the last clause in the above paragraph, I might write> when the author refers to [the subject] only implicitly.The obvious alternative is to quote a longer passage. Maybe this is one of those cases where conciseness fights with authenticity.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.