So that is not always 100% true … they CAN answer tickets in some cases but I don’t know what those cases are and they don’t want to encourage people to come here to get around the ticket system. The OP did have a direct assist from Orlyia on their last appeal and situation.
The account history never resets. If you had ANY chat system infraction on the account then it counts as a strike. Your first may have been a 24 hour silence back when the penalties were shorter. A second then was 48 hour silence. You may not have even noticed. You are getting 10 days because your account has two past infractions on it, even if you don’t remember them.
Abusive Language is the catch all term used for “abuse of the chat system”. That does not just include horrible speech that abuses people, it includes spam, advertising, trolling, and anything else using the chat system that breaks rules. In your case, I think spam was the category you needed to be careful with.
This is an Account wide thing. It does not always pop for the character that you were reported it. It can pop up for another character later - even in a different game mode like Classic vs Retail.
What you were doing at the time of the notice, or suspension, is not always what you got reported for.
Also, if you were doing things with others and have any macros or addons that do RP speech, or pop up something in chat, that can be a culprit for spam.