Are there any rules/conventions for using dashed and dotted hyperlink types?

Question

css

Recently, you can often see links in which the underline is in the form of a dotted line (dashed) or in the form of a series of dots (dotted). Such links are found mainly in Runet, including on Habré.

As far as I can tell, dashed links usually mean that it's not a link to another page, but some action on the current page. For example, the output of an additional block with information.
On the other hand, a foreign colleague told me today that dashed links are used when a dialog box appears on click. I have never come across such an application.

Tell me, are there any articles in Russian or English that would describe some generally accepted rules for using these types of links? Googling sane results did not give.

Answer 1

IMHO, dashed / dotted (taste) - links mean an action without reloading the page.

Answer 2

dotted historically, the acronym and abbr tags were rendered and were often used to explain the meaning of terms in text. I remember that at one time there was a fashion to replace the standard browser hints with links with pop-ups, apparently in order to stylize them under the site design. Maybe that's where it all came from.

Answer 3

I was also told here on stackoverflow that there was a time when they tried to indicate contextual hints with dashed underlines. However, I do not think that it is used somewhere in modern sites.

Answer 4

You don't have to go far for examples)
Directly on this page - "comment", "you can use html tags", "clarify the question", "sorted by date | at the rate"

Answer 5

I do not know an authoritative source, but I will try to formulate what I think about this.
Dashed should be used when switching, let's say, block-tabs on the page, sorting (like here "By date" | "By rating"), when opening blocks that were not on the page.
Dotted links are either an abbreviation or almost like a button. That is, the "Reload block" link should be dotted, or, let's say, the action processed by Java Script is "Start the timer".
Everything above is just my opinion and I will be really glad if someone convincingly explains why I am wrong.

Answer 6

Regarding Dashed, in general, everything is already clear. In the Russian segment of the Internet, it is used for actions that do not reload the page. Including the ones you described.
But the use of dotted, other than displaying additional information on mouseover, I have not seen anywhere. Maybe you have examples of such use?