While there are continuous numbers of nefarious ICO's "launching" every week, luckily they are relatively easy to spot. Alternately, the ICO's that generally float to the top and become well known (and well funded), are also relatively easy to spot as well.
We use a system at
https://icosource.io called "Minimum Viable Offering", in which any project on our site to be listed must:
1. Display the members of their team on their homepage
2. Contact us via an email which includes the project url.
3. Have both Facebook and Twitter pages for their project.
4. Have a minimum of two of: Slack, Telegram, Reddit, BitcoinTalk, Discord, Github and Medium.
5. Must have a whitepaper.
6. Their logo must be of a high enough quality to portray a professional project.
We're asking for suggestions on other checks we can include at
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2561039.new#new. We're interested in all points of view and ideas surrounding ways to reduce contact between scam ICO's and users, and would appreciate your contribution to the conversation!