A way to change "private" setting per contact without sending message to the contact

[web_bitlbee@…]

Currently we have default "set private", and then I can switch it, per contact, by either using &bitlbee channel or /msg to send texts to given contact.

But in some cases, I'd like to be able to change the setting, without sending anything to contact - in my case, because contact is jabber bot that does things, and I don't want to make it start another work, but rather redirect messages from it to channel/query.

Ideally, it would work like:

contact <name> set private true
contact <name> set private false

it's "a bit" verbose, but it would let grouping all contact-related commands in single command that does all, like:

contact <name> rename
contact <name> info

of course this is optional, just an idea.