As investor and cryptocurrency enthusiast you should be knowledge enough to detect those project that are fake I know it's hard to find them especial when a project sound so good and promising but sometimes we easily got deceived by their sweet words and fake promises without us checking the needful aspect of them. Just as you have outlined already, the important aspect to look out is whitepaper and effective community.
Most times community always shows a strong lifting of any projects, if there is a low communication within the community then there is every possibility that the project could scam people because communication matters alot.