Does your ICO pass the smell test?

[bbc.reporter]

Recently saw some posts about detecting "scam" ICOs-- but what about detecting just "bad ideas" for ICOs?
What's your smell test?

(1). Check the management team, check for people who have a history of previous successful ICOs.
(2). Read the white paper and consider-- why can't this just be done with a database? What's the true use value of the token? Why does it benefit from being decentralized? Is it truly decentralized?
(3). What is your smell test for ICOs?

1) Developers who have made previously successful ICOs only mean that they are good in marketing their product. It does not mean they are technically qualified in developing good cryptocoin protocols.

2) But we do not have enough technical knowledge to know if the whitepaper is good or not. Whitepapers have also become marketing tools to trick less knowledgeable people like us.

3) It is not we who decide what passes the smell test. If it passes your smell test but it does not with the SEC then you still made a bad investment.

[gabecolors]

3) It is not we who decide what passes the smell test. If it passes your smell test but it does not with the SEC then you still made a bad investment.

Hmm, interesting. Did other folks think I was talking about regulation? Legality?
I meant my question to qualify valid use cases in the market, in the real world. Does it increase efficiencies and security? Is the token solving a real problem in a much better way than is already provided by existing tokens, or more specifically traditional/existing solutions? Maybe because I am just a newbie, but to me the qualifying lens (smell test) of asking "why use the blockchain when a database could solve this problem just if not more easily" helped me focus when reading white papers.

An example I heard (sorry no links, just heard from friend) was a proposed blockchain to qualify organic food-- it needs to be transparent (people aren't going to just trust Whole Foods) and it needs to be accessible to all.

Perhaps I am still stuck on the personal conundrum where ICOs in many cases seem antithetical to the core precept of being decentralized.