I remember it was suggested to change "Permanent" to "Indefinite" but I'm not sure where that discussion occurred. I recommend changing all of them to "indefinite".

I suspect that "indefinite" is harder to translate without further explanation. The developer should always write a good explanation in qqq, and the translator should always read it, but the reality is that both things are hard to enforce, and using clear words in the message itself is a high priority.

"Indefinite" is kind of correct literally, but not necessarily clear to non-native English speakers.

"Infinite" is clearer than indefinite, but sounds a bit too mathematical.

"Does not expire" and "no expiry set" are probably the clearest both for English speakers and for translations. "Permanent" is okay, too, but it may be weird in some contexts.

I would add another option: "Forever", which should be very easy to understand and translate, and appropriate at least I'm some context.

Is it even possible to use the same word everywhere? I'm not sure. A bit more consistency is probably good, but I'm not sure it should be enforced too strongly.

Also, if this is to succeed, it should be discussed not only by some people on Phabricator—editors and administrators on some major wikis should be involved, too, and ideally, it should not be just Wikipedia.

In T315345#8191714, @Amire80 wrote:

"Indefinite" is kind of correct literally, but not necessarily clear to non-native English speakers.

"Infinite" is clearer than indefinite, but sounds a bit too mathematical.

Even just in English when it comes to user blocks there is a lot of subtlety in this. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Indefinite_blocks: "Indefinite does not mean "infinite" or "permanent". An indefinitely blocked user may later be unblocked in appropriate circumstances."

I'm not sure if other wikis have similar policies/explanations.

"Does not expire" and "no expiry set" are probably the clearest both for English speakers and for translations.

I really like both of these.

"Permanent" is okay, too, but it may be weird in some contexts.
I would add another option: "Forever", which should be very easy to understand and translate, and appropriate at least I'm some context.

Not a fan of this, just because most things in MediaWiki are reversible, whether technically or socially.

Is it even possible to use the same word everywhere? I'm not sure. A bit more consistency is probably good, but I'm not sure it should be enforced too strongly.

Also, if this is to succeed, it should be discussed not only by some people on Phabricator—editors and administrators on some major wikis should be involved, too, and ideally, it should not be just Wikipedia.

Agreed on both.

In T315345#8191719, @Legoktm wrote:

In T315345#8191714, @Amire80 wrote:

"Indefinite" is kind of correct literally, but not necessarily clear to non-native English speakers.

"Infinite" is clearer than indefinite, but sounds a bit too mathematical.

Even just in English when it comes to user blocks there is a lot of subtlety in this. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Indefinite_blocks: "Indefinite does not mean "infinite" or "permanent". An indefinitely blocked user may later be unblocked in appropriate circumstances."

"An indefinite block is a block that does not have a definite (or fixed) duration." The same applies to protection, user group memberships and watchlisting pages. So I recommend changing the default content of MediaWiki:Infiniteblock to "indefinite" or "no expiry set".

For the same reason, I recommend changing the default content of MediaWiki:Watchlist-expiry-options, replacing "Permanent" to "indefinite".

Those are good points. I support "no expiry set". "Does not expire" sounds too much like "permanent", which isn't the case.

Change 884014 had a related patch set uploaded (by EpicPupper; author: EpicPupper):

[mediawiki/core@master] Clarify wording for watchlist times

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/884014

Backend counterpart to this task: T353483: Converge infinity values into one constant