It makes me suspicious, for reasons I can’t seem to adequately describe. I think it’s the question as to why the entity responsible for the phenomenon would go as far as to make it look welcoming, but not so far as to explain what the hell this is all about.
The welcome mat is a bit like the worm on a fish-hook, to me.
At the end of, “… to the benefit of others”, I should have added, “or one’s self.” !
Or maybe we have a tendency to run from the known rather than towards the unknown.
I tend to take welcome mats at face value. Who do you know puts out a welcome mat, then does something horrible to you? Does anyone have any first hand experience with a welcome mat that was also an insidious trap?
I would know. Besides, nothing in the scenario says you can’t ever return. Maybe you can!
I’d still go.
No, but none of the examples I have so far encountered have been associated with mysteriously magically-appearing, time-limited portals. Context is everything.
Surely an entity considerate enough to place down a welcome mat, would also be thoughtful enough to make their challenge less ambiguous…unless it was a trap???
Naw. I can see Mangetout’s point, but it just never mattered to my decision.
Then again… an entity powerful enough to create the phenomenon, but malicious, would be easily capable of making it appear completely benign and unambiguous, or just whisking you away and eating you, regardless of any magic door.
I would kick the doors open and jumped through them. Probably humming Indiana Jones score.
When confronted with dream-like reality warping phenomenon you can as well play along, and do it with style.
Let’s hope the properties of the phenomenon allow you to reach back and retrieve your hat.
Aha, but…ah, but…but… Fuck it! Ready, or not. Here I come, mysterious red…
Czarcasm! Why you…checks fora…<contents censored>!!!
I know there’s really nothing there, the dor is imaginary, blah blah blah. But those of us who went through are curious, and since it’s your door, it’s your place to make something up. Please? If you don’t, I’ll be doomed to wonder forever, just as if…I had found a mysterious door and never gone through.
Seriously, I’m weird like that. 
I have, in fact, had experiences with man-eating welcome mats. Part of why I said to dive through.
Well, in the dungeons and the dragons. But hey, that’s where you get mysterious portals.
I would go through, after checking with my foot to make sure there’s a floor to step on (I ain’t stepping off a cliff). I’d probably spend the first 20 seconds futily poking about trying to figure out what it was, but I’d go.
Best quote in the thread. And no, wombats don’t count as small mammals. We’re kind of medium-sized. And we have pouches to secrete small mammals in.
Don’t ask me-it’s not my door! 
On the other hand, if I had a limited amount of time to gather up a sufficient number of people to start up a new society elsewhere, I can’t think of a better way to find people that aren’t afraid to test the unknown, people that aren’t dead from the neck up and just coast through life avoiding all the tough decisions.
summons husband and kids to sign up for the Dope
Have you ever read the story, What can you say about chocolate-covered manhole covers, by Larry Niven? You wouldn’t happen to be robotic, would you?
That was my inspiration for this question-good pull, there.