In 5¼" disks, the uncovered notch meant R/W while stickers were used to prevent writing.
Of course, the floppy manufacturers warned that the cheaper single sided floppies had only been tested on the front side, and might have defects on the back. But I don't remember that ever being a real problem.
I remember someone telling me that the floppy manufacturers were obviously lying, because C=64 computers normally wrote on one side (back, I think), while Apple ][ series computers wrote on the other side, so the disks had to be tested on both sides anyway so they could be used in either computer.
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