The Loop and my default theme

I am greatly confused. I don’t seem to be able to functionally comment out lines of code (or comments) in that file. I have tried prepending each line to ignore with // and # and I have tried enclosing the text/code to be ignored with /* */ and in all three cases this code hoses my main page. I have to remove that line (though not my comment line) in order for my site to function. What’s up with that?

It’s the default theme’s index.php file. We all have one. But here you go:

<?php
/**
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Default_Theme
 */

get_header(); ?>

	<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

	<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

		<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

			<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
				<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
				<small><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> <!-- by <?php the_author() ?> --></small>

				<div class="entry">
					<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?>
				</div>

				<p class="postmetadata"><?php the_tags('Tags: ', ', ', '<br />'); ?> Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> | <?php edit_post_link('Edit', '', ' | '); ?>  <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></p>
			</div>

#  Line of code added from:     wordpress.org/extend/plugins/community-tags/installation/

#  <?php $post_id = the_ID(); <div id="tagthis-$post_id" class="tagthis" style="display:none"></div> ?>

		<?php endwhile; ?>

		<div class="navigation">
			<div class="alignleft"><?php next_posts_link('&laquo; Older Entries') ?></div>
			<div class="alignright"><?php previous_posts_link('Newer Entries &raquo;') ?></div>
		</div>

	<?php else : ?>

		<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
		<p class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.</p>
		<?php get_search_form(); ?>

	<?php endif; ?>

	</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

You can see the two lines I’m working with (prepended by #) about in the middle. I don’t have that second line present in the live version because it hoses my site; I’m including it here so you can see it in the version with both lines commented out and still hosing things.

You know, I’m wondering if this is in fact the best location for this line of code anyway. I’ll explain.

It seems that this particular file effects the main page which lists all the posts in a long list (broken into pages of 15 posts I think). It would make more sense to put this tag adding code on the individual posts (with the comment boxes, say). Should I work on adding this code to a different file which would do that instead of adding to this one? Does that make sense?

Ok, I think we are getting very close. I made the redirect change–I think that was a good idea.

I know the code I entered into single.php is effecting the correct page(s) on my site, because initially I was using php comments and not html comments so my comment line appeared (on the bottom of individual posts). However, I am not getting any a tag-adding fields or such similar. Here is my single.php:

<?php
/**
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Default_Theme
 */

get_header();
?>

	<div id="content" class="widecolumn">

	<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

		<div class="navigation">
			<div class="alignleft"><?php previous_post_link('&laquo; %link') ?></div>
			<div class="alignright"><?php next_post_link('%link &raquo;') ?></div>
		</div>

		<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
			<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

			<div class="entry">
				<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>'); ?>

				<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
				<?php the_tags( '<p>Tags: ', ', ', '</p>'); ?>

				<p class="postmetadata alt">
					<small>
						This entry was posted
						<?php /* This is commented, because it requires a little adjusting sometimes.
							You'll need to download this plugin, and follow the instructions:
							http://binarybonsai.com/archives/2004/08/17/time-since-plugin/ */
							/* $entry_datetime = abs(strtotime($post->post_date) - (60*120)); echo time_since($entry_datetime); echo ' ago'; */ ?>
						on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> at <?php the_time() ?>
						and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>.
						You can follow any responses to this entry through the <?php post_comments_feed_link('RSS 2.0'); ?> feed.

						<?php if (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
							// Both Comments and Pings are open ?>
							You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.

						<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
							// Only Pings are Open ?>
							Responses are currently closed, but you can <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?> " rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.

						<?php } elseif (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
							// Comments are open, Pings are not ?>
							You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

						<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
							// Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?>
							Both comments and pings are currently closed.

						<?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry','','.'); ?>

					</small>
				</p>

			</div>
		</div>

<!--  User-tagging code from: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/255106  -->

<div id="tagthis-<?php the_ID();?>" class="tagthis" style="display:none"></div>

	<?php comments_template(); ?>

	<?php endwhile; else: ?>

		<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>

<?php endif; ?>

	</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

I am placing it incorrectly? Thoughts?