Online Communities the Death of Qualitative Research?

Virtual worlds and online communities can be great tools for conducting experiments. It's not uncommon for an experiment that would be costly, unethical, or simply hard to manage in "real life" to find an easy transition into the digital world. In fact, sometimes even virtual mistakes and oversights can unintentionally cause situations of interest to the research world (I'm thinking particularly of the World of Warcraft epidemic of 2005, though there are other examples).

So what does this mean for the research community? A recent post to Terra Nova, a community blog about virtual worlds, recaps a discussion that took place in Second Life about the future of qualitative research. In short, the availability of virtual worlds and online communities for experimentation (with their increased ability to provide statistical and quantitative data), paired with the misconception that quantitative research will always trump qualitative research, could create a decrease in funding and interest in qualitative research. If a question can be answered both qualitatively and quantitatively, should the quantitative answer hold more merit? If a question can only be answered qualitatively, is it even worth asking?

The full transcript of the panel discussion is available in the article.