What makes you think that some projects are good and others are not? Well, your point is valid but without any propaganda.
Talking about popularity, its the community behind it that a project become popular, but every popular project is not necessarily good project.

A good project delivers on time, have strong fundamentals behind it with real world problem solving products. A good team and the project is supported by experienced advisors. If the project is worth, there are a lot of good companies which are interested to be a partner of this new upcoming projects. This is what gives you an idea if the project is good or not.