The way I judge it is by quality, ie. out of the all the girls I meet the ratio of them which are interesting, fun to talk to people.
Using since September as an example for myself, being the time I first came to university and met many more people both online and offline than before.
I have decided that out of 15 or so girls i've spoken to online, 3 were interesting and fun. And out of the 10 or so girls i've spoken to offline, yes I rarely speak to girls in a social setting unfortunately due to not going out much/ being in Stafford campus (there be no girls 'ere), about 2 I would class as interesting and fun and both sadly had boyfriends.
I'm very selective when deciding how interesting and fun someone is to talk too, as a result my selection of friends of both sexes that I keep in communication with is well, selective. Problem is I am by no means a life of the party person and find even group conversation difficult so I am not a quick friends maker. Then again maybe these group conversations just don't interest me so it's hard to say really.
Considering I don't go out very often I find the internet to be a godsend and personally think it is much preferable to meeting in a club if your weary about things like fakers/ timewasters, something I haven't been very weary of until recently causing me to almost give up on talking to girls online.
Drawbacks about meeting girls in a club for me are-
1. Noisy environment so difficult to converse without having to raise your voice, extremely frustrating.
2. Most girls go clubbing for male attention/ dancing so if you pull theres a good chance shes only doing it for the attention. In contrast guys go clubbing for dancing AND pulling. Girls don't understand this because by the nature of our society it is the guys that have to initiate anything so guys have to think about pulling and girls don't (see male attention).
Despite clubs being terrible places to meet girls they are unfortunately the only place outside of pubs or houseparties you can do it unless your willing to talk to girls on the street or in coffee shops.
Not only that but theres the benefit previous posters have mentioned of being able to get to know someones personality before looks and be attracted to them for non-vain reasons. You could argue that most people have pictures on the internet but then 95% of these pictures are too low resolution to tell how goodlooking someone is so they don't count.
Would appreciate any replies to my post which I think is constructive to this thread, using my own experiences to extrapolate on the best medium to meet people; which is ideally house parties/ through friends/ family but for me and many other people these types of social meetings can be hard to come by.
Disclaimer: I by no means consider myself an expert in either online or offline social interaction I am simply basing my assumptions on my own limited experience.
