Guild Wars 2

Just a few random questions maybe someone could answer
1.What are shards of glory? And why do I have 6 of them?
2. How do you even get XP for guilds? I own a guild and am trying to figure it out
3. I did a pvp mission with 4 other guildies today where you need to get 500 combines points total. We did this, i even screenshotted it and followed every instruction to the detail on the mission and we didnt get credit for it
4. Can you retry missions forever now without a cost to start them?
5. Did taking influence away help out the smaller guilds or hurt them?

Also, loving expansion so far!!!