What is the history behind the site scope change from NPR to "conceptual questions about software development"?

Question

How did the topic of this site to change from "Not-Programming-Related" to "conceptual questions about software development"?

I've tried looking through meta questions to find where the change in site scope was discussed, but haven't found much. The biggest change in site scope I see on meta is the Six Subjective Question Guidelines — Enforcement Notice, which doesn't really discuss site scope at all other than rules for subjective questions.

If this was a community-decision, I would expect there to be a lot of meta questions related to the site scope change. If this was an executive decision, I would expect to see some kind of notice posted that got a lot of attention. Maybe I'm just using the wrong keywords in my meta searches.

Can someone explain the history of how this site changed from the original "Not-Programming-Related" proposal to be a site for programmers about issues not directly related to programming, to the current site scope of "conceptual questions about software development"?

Update

Mark's answer provides the timeline I was looking for, along with some great links, however Walter's comment pretty much sums it up:

There really wasn't discussion on Meta about the site change, it was an edict from above saying this must change... and so it did

This can further be seen in the links Mark provides where site scope was discussed on P.SE meta, and the general consensus was not to change anything, other than to crack down on some of the nonsense questions that just had "as a programmer" tacked on. To quote Mark:

A few days ago, I created the question, "How can we avoid Programmers.SE from becoming the SE black sheep?". There, the consensus was to not change anything. Unfortunately, SOIS has spoken, and it looks like that sentiment will not be able to sustain the site.

While I am disappointed in this, at least now I know where the change came from.

I actually didn't realize the change in site scope went that far back, because I never saw any kind of announcement telling us that NPR was no longer going to be tolerated. The only thing I saw was an announcement about subjective questions guidelines, which I thought was the attempt to crack down on the "as a programmer" nonsense questions, and many subsequent battles on meta over site scope where it seemed the users had one opinion, and the moderators had another.

I did see the blog post when P.SE finally left beta, however I thought it was merely trying to advertise the more constructive side of P.SE, not that the NPR side was no longer valid.

Answer 1

The timeline of this was:

• June 3, 2010 — NPR proposal created in Area51
• September 1, 2010 — NPR enters private beta as "Programmers" (will continue to call it NPR for the sake of distinguishing it from the current site)
• September 7, 2010 — NPR enters public beta
• September 13, 2010 — MSO starts to grapple with how bad NPR is when trying to dupe Software Engineering proposals to it
• September 15, 2010 — We on Meta Programmers.SE start to deal with that perception
• September 17, 2010 — SE makes a blog post announcing the decision to start merging programming-related proposals to improve NPR
• September 18, 2010 — We begin to redefine the scope of the site
• September 23, 2010 — MSO and SE do the same, with different results
• September 29, 2010 — "Good Subjective, Bad Subjective" is published, new scope and guidelines begin to be enforced, and the free-for-all NPR proposal dies. It's replaced with Programmers, the site for expert programmers who are interested in subjective questions on software development.
• December 16, 2010 — Programmers launches, and the position statement is tweaked from "subjective questions" to "conceptual questions" to make it easier to explain why it exists compared to Stack Overflow.
• December 17, 2010–Present — Clean-up of the colossal mess left over from beta, including incorrect UI strings and FAQ wordings, crappy questions, awful tags, misconceptions, and so on.

Within 29 days the site went from programmers hanging out and discussing their lifestyle to programmers discussing software development issues, now over 18 months ago, which is why I'm always surprised people still cling to that old proposal. I would've thought they'd all move on by now: the writing was on the wall almost immediately after the site left private beta.

Answer 2

September 2010 appears to be a turning point, indicated by Joel's blog post mentioning

Programmers Stack Exchange, which appears to be degrading into fairly stupid water-cooler nonsense...

which was further followed by What questions are on-topic, and what are off-topic? and The Six Subjective Question Guidelines — Enforcement Notice.

Answer 3

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of NPR. I know not how it was --but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me --upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain --upon the bleak walls --upon the vacant eye-like windows --upon a few rank sedges --and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees --with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium --the bitter lapse into everyday life --the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart --an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it --I paused to think --what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of NPR? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down --but with a shudder even more thrilling than before --upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Is probably how Edgar Allan Poe would have described it. If he was a programmer (on a boat).