LOL... I can't say I blame you for hiding in a corner. It's true that the Zelda canon has gotten pretty complicated and confusing over the years, and it's far from straightforward and full of gaps, but there actually
is an official order to the timeline that has been confirmed by Aonuma and Miyamoto. You said "A common belief is that Majora’s Mask takes place in an alternate timeline that starts right after the end of Ocarina of Time". It's hardly just "a common belief", because that part
is official canon. If you took the time to do a little more research before posting this you'd know Aonuma and Miyamoto have established the following order at one point or the other:
ALttP> LA
^
TP
^
OoT (past)>MM
---
WW> PH
^
OoT (future)
Where the other games fit in is anyone's guess, but at least that much is established.
I actually already summarized how they all fit together in a previous post:
He got the Triforce by tricking Zelda and Link into opening the entrance to where the Triforce was kept. Link then experienced an alternate future where Ganondorf only obtained the Triforce of Power (whereas he had the full Triforce in ALttP) while the other two parts went to Zelda and Link, who battle and defeat him and ultimately seal him away in a confusingly similar way to how he was said to have been sealed away in ALttP's history, yet clearly not the same since here, there are only six sages instead of the seven, and they weren't all human either so they couldn't be the ancestors of the maidens from ALttP. This is soon proven to be the case as Zelda then sends Link back to the past where he closes the gate by returning the Master Sword while Ganondorf was still off in the Sacred Realm, thus preventing him from returning, instead allowing him to obtain the full Triforce but leaving him unable to return, which would lead up to the ALttP history instead, but apparently not before he ends up meeting some guy named Zant and causes more trouble.
Oh yeah, also:
Even though that other timeline was prevented, it still somehow existed and resulted in Hyrule being flooded generations later which apparently led to the Zoras somehow evolving into a birds and Ganondorf turning into a statue... But it's apparently not worth explaining, since it all takes place in a defunct timeline anyways, so we're apparently just supposed to ignore it for now and pretend it never happened (unless of course they change their minds and try to resurrect the idea in the future).
As convoluted as it sounds, it
does fit together (aside from the Wind Waker timeline which clearly wasn't at all thought out.)
It's really not up for debate over when MM takes place. The official story puts it after the events of OoT (which ends with Link returning to the past and averting everything that would have happened in the future). OoT Link's only contribution to the main timeline was up to when he lifted the Master Sword, allowing Ganondorf to enter Sacred Realm. After that, the timeline changed since Young Link closed the seal by returning the sword locking Ganondorf inside (allowing Link to move on with his life and somehow wander into a land called Termina located in an other dimension, as so many young boys do). Besides, the plot to WW is that Link never returned to save Hyrule which is why it flooded, so even if Link did die during MM, nothing would affect those events anyways.
I have to say I'm a little disappointed to see a staff writer make this kind of mistake in an official article. When we want to read hastily written, uninformed rants filled with biased ideas and misinformation we'll just read the forums! :-P