Do you mean the @mentions or the votes?

Anyone can vote on anyone else's post, even if they are being ignored by the person they are voting on, but that has always been the case. It's now just been extended to include replies.

Regarding @mentions, there's a couple ways to handle it.

I added a new user setting that allows you to 1) ignore mentions from certain posters, or 2) disable mentions entirely. See the link below. If you're @mentioned, there will be a link on the activity feed to remove those mentions entirely.

Ignores should continue to work as before, and they should also prevent you from seeing any mentions by the ignored poster. If that's not working as intended, it's a bug. Let me know and I'll fix it.

Link: User settings