Bitcoin Forum

Interesting question, right?  ;D
I just mean how do you usually distinguish a good ICO project from an ICO scam?

Gotta dig and do some good ol research. Other than that you would be guessing or taking the words of others and that is definitely not how you want to be while investing your money. Take your time do some diligence and

get the facts straight!

Some things I look for in a "real" ICO would be:

• have the people running the project managed a real business before?
• is the project something that needs to exist, regardless of whether an ICO is being held (ie, would it be investable via traditional methods)? 
• do they have a well-developed white paper and roadmap for the project? 
• have they explained where the ICO money is going?
• do they have reputable advisors?
• do they have proper security and vetting for the token sale and smart contracts? audits?

An active developer team is important, and you should check all of their profiles and credibility. Next, they should always try to respond to any doubts that you raise in their thread. Their site and design layout should be elegant, meaning they invest a bit in site building to attract their valuable customers.

The most important thing would be to read their whitepaper as all their information is their, find out their soft and hard cap. A good ICO would have good intentions and can contribute to the crypto world, if not the society and the world. :)

Take a look at Verify (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2374729) and their whitepaper (https://verify.as/files/whitepaper.pdf) for instance.