Improving hostels with bad reviews

I came across a couple of interesting comments about hostels today.

I read a blog post that mentioned there is an island in the USA where the only two hostels have gotten so many complaints that they are no longer listed in Lonely Planet.

I also read this review of a US hostel on one of the hostel booking sites:

PLEASE SAVE HOSTELING. Hostels are all turning into expensive flophouses for psychiatric patients, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and becoming shooting galleries (meaning a place for people using needles for drug usage).

Do you think there is any hope for these kinds of hostels to improve?

How could the standards at hostels be improved? Is it going to take more competition from other hostels? (I think that more remote hostels don't have to worry about their quality if they are the only cheap accommodation available.)

I started a Wiki page on how to improve hostel reviews, but I think that is only going to help if people find that page and have a motivation to change how they do things...