I can't really follow anymore, but that's probably because I don't really know IRC (nor MUC in general). You initially said you open a chat room with one user (not yourself). Can you do that without joining, e.g. just to "watch" the channel? If you can, then, yes, isPrivate() is a problem. Otherwise I don't get it. There can be as many users as you like - as soon as there is more than one member, the room is no longer private.