So did Neji ask all the inactive mods then? I know Taraka and Rinoa said they weren't told about it and they are actually active, and that's about 80% of the active mods.
Kamui, Taraka, Rinoa, and Zimzamboo were all in the group that I can recall. May be faulty info, but I doubt it.
I speak to all four of these people on a (at least somewhat) regular basis, and they, for the most part, relayed it the way you were told by Nathan; he was given his status because he asked for it. I haven't heard anything about a vote for Nathan whatsoever.
As far as the original post goes..
We have game masters who are able to do this. Zimzamboo, Kamui, Rinoa, Nathan... They all CAN do their job. A few bigger problem I am seeing is, when two opposing sides have a serious question, either a) one of the sides doesn't like/respect the moderator called, and therefore doesn't accept their opinion b) the game master's own personal RP impedes the process of unbiased decision making.
Further, the place where most of our RP information is contained (the narutoprofile wiki) is maintained by Yumei, who isn't a mod himself. He pays his $8 a month (estimation) to host all this information. That doesn't seem like a huge problem at first, but as things evolve, things are missed and/or exploited.
Now, solutions to these problems are a bit hairy. To solve the first issue, we'd have to 'elect' game masters who can either enforce their opinion (which isn't something anybody wants), or elect game masters who are proven to be able to remain unbiased, or elect a huge number of moderators and hope and pray that none of them dislike each other enough to go head-to-head and produce a huge headache. What ought to happen, in my honest opinion, is a mixture of these three options. Have a group of game masters, preferably active and odd in number, who are known to be knowledgeable in SL RP, unbiased, and unyielding.
Whether or not a player likes/dislikes a game master is irrelevant. It is their job to settle disputes. With RP having become such a huge part of the game, their opinion needs to be respected and their ability to give unbiased responses needs to be keen. So far, Nathan and Kamui both know what's going on; Rinoa and Zimzamboo, the other two active masters we are talking about, are still trying to catch up from their previous inactivity.
As for the other problem with the wiki, I spoke to Zimzamboo, who said he'd like to create a SL wiki (essentially the same thing) that is moderated by the game masters and plays host to the site's information. I endorse this idea; he was saying it was $8 a month. If that means I have to put up some money every month to help him out in that endeavor, I'd be okay with that. My point is, the current way of hosting information isn't yielding to the game being moderated by the game masters; it yields to the game being moderated by those who are REALLY familiar with it, which is difficult.
If, say, two or three more ACTIVE game masters were to be chosen, they along with who the site already has ought to be able to moderate fights that need it. They should be the go-to, and they should be familiar with the site that hosts the RP information. If the set of game masters are familiar with the information they contain on general RP, and each character is familiar with their OWN set, game masters are able to check their info in problems, validate or deny with ease, and move on. Right now, the info in the wiki is being manipulated each and every way because it is SO inconsistent.
Further, if more game masters are chosen, it is probably best they don't have a history of getting banned for ERP, misconduct, abusive language, etc. Just throwing that out there.