[maxerickson]

Why is ~1 user doing it is the question. I guess there is a good chance they just prefer it.

[rfreytag]

Because when searching in 2017+ knowing the year of the article might be nice. With the Wayback Machine and its ilk around the Internet is not ephemeral.

[ajanuary]

Most posts are contemporary, which means you can use the post date to figure out the year of the article without clogging up the list of titles with (2016)